Box Office Results: Blue Beetle Overtakes Barbie Domestically

By | August 20, 2023

It took a month, but Barbie finally fell off her perch atop the domestic box office. Blue Beetle, the latest offering from the DC universe, leaped to No. 1 with a $25.4 million domestic bow, per Deadline — a meager opening for the superhero pic and the lowest for a DCEU offering to date. The figure comes in higher than Wonder Woman 1984’s $16.7M and a tad lower than The Suicide Squad’s $26.2M, but remember, those pics were released on HBO Max during the pandemic. Blue Beetle couldn’t even match Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ $30.1M, a film that finished with $167M worldwide.

The only other new release was Universal’s R-rated comedy Strays, featuring the voices of Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, which crashed and burned with $8.3M.

Otherwise, Barbie came in at No. 2 with $21.5M, bringing its domestic total to $567M and worldwide cume to $1.279 billion, making it Warner Bros.’s top-grossing movie of all time.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer also continues to rake in the moola, bringing in another $10.6M, raising its total to $285.2M domestic and $717.8M worldwide. It is now the highest-grossing film not to reach No. 1 at the domestic box office and currently stands as the fifth highest-grossing R-rated picture of all time worldwide behind Joker ($1.066B), Deadpool 2 ($786M), Deadpool ($781M), and The Matrix Reloaded ($738M). By next week, it will have surpassed the worldwide total of Nolan’s Inception ($728M) to become the director’s third biggest feature.

DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE TOP 10

1.) Blue Beetle 3,871 theaters, Fri $10M, Sat $8.55M Sun $6.85M 3-day $25.4M/Wk 1

2.) Barbie (WB) 4003 (-175) theaters, Fri $6.3M (-38%) Sat $8.4M Sun $6.75M 3-day $21.5M (-36%)/Total $567.2M/Wk 5

3.) Oppenheimer (Uni) 3,321 (-440) theaters Fri $3M (-40%) Sat $4.3M Sun $3.2M 3-day $10.6M (-44%)/Total $285.2M/Wk 5

4.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…(Par) 3,477 (-473) theaters Fri $2.3M (-44%) Sat $3.6M Sun $2.5M 3-day $8.4M (-45%), Total $88.1M/Wk 3

5.) Strays (Uni) 3,223 theaters, Fri $3.4M Sat $2.7M Sun $2M 3-day $8.3M/Wk 1

6.) The Meg 2: The Trench (WB) 3,402 (-202) theaters Fri $1.8M (-49%) Sat $2.9M Sun $2M 3-day $6.7M (-48%)/Total $66.5M/Wk 3

7.) Talk to Me (A24) 1789 (-590) theates, Fri $946K (-37%) Sat $1.2M Sun $962K 3-day $3.15M (-36%) Total $37.3M/Wk 4

8.) Haunted Mansion (Dis) 2180 (-680) theaters Fri $795K (-49%) Sat $1.3M Sun $905K 3-day $3M (-47%)/Total $58.8M/Wk 4

9.) Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Par) 1,608 (-527) Fri $770K (-38%) Sat $1.15M Sun $805K 3-day $2.72M (-41%), Total $164.6M/Wk 6

10.) Last Voyage of the Demeter (Uni/Amb) 2175 theaters, Fri $740K (-72%) Sat $1M Sun $720K 3-day $2.5M (-62%), Total $11.3M/Wk 2

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