'Disclosure Day' Uncovers $44 Million Box Office Opening
Universal/Amblin’s “Disclosure Day,” Steven Spielberg’s first summer movie in a decade, is off to a decent start at the box office with a $19 million opening day from 3,824 locations, putting the film on course for a $44 million domestic and $93 million global opening weekend.
For comparison, that’s a few steps above the $41 million opening for Spielberg’s 2018 blockbuster “Ready Player One,” making it the famed director’s best opening weekend since “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” in 2008.
Still, with a reported $115 million production budget before marketing costs, “Disclosure Day” has some work to do to turn a theatrical profit. Reception for the film has been generally positive with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 80% critics and 74% audience to go with a B on CinemaScore. But compared to Spielberg’s wide releases in the 2010s, these scores are below his track record as “Disclosure Day” marks the first time he has received a CinemaScore grade below A- since “Crystal Skull.”
Elsewhere on the charts, Focus Features’ “Obsession” is now starting to see larger weekend-to-weekend drops, but it is still posting totals above its opening weekend with an astounding fifth weekend total of $21 million.
In the coming week, “Obsession” will become just the fifth horror film to gross $200 million domestic before inflation adjustment and join Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” as only the second original film since “Coco” in November 2017 to cross that mark.
The box office news is not as good for last weekend’s releases, Paramount/Miramax’s “Scary Movie” and Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe,” both of which fell at least 70% from their opening weekends as “Scary Movie” earned $15.6 million in its second weekend while “Masters” falls to a dismal $8.8 million.
Paramount and Miramax can shrug off this frontloaded run for “Scary Movie,” as the film has a production budget of just $30 million against an estimated 10-day domestic total of approximately $85 million. But it’s very bad news for the $170 million-plus “Masters of the Universe,” which stands to have a 10-day domestic total of $46 million as its fate as a summer bomb is sealed.
Farther down the charts, Lionsgate/Universal’s “Michael” is now the highest grossing music biopic of all time as it is set to add $4.6 million in its eighth weekend while earning a $2 million opening day in Japan. With more than $920 million worldwide, Antoine Fuqua’s biopic has passed “Bohemian Rhapsody” worldwide and is still on course to pass “Oppenheimer” for the all-time biopic record.
Lionsgate has also released the R-rated Hong Kong action film “The Furious” in 1,251 locations, where it is set to earn $2.9 million this weekend. Starring Xie Miao and Joe Taslim as two men who set out to take down a child trafficking ring in Hong Kong’s underworld, the bloody martial arts film has received critical acclaim with an A on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 98% critics and 95% audience.
Also opening in targeted release is the drag queen disaster comedy “Stop! That! Train!,” which has rolled out to 1,161 locations courtesy of Bleecker Street and is on pace for a $2.3 million opening. It has RT scores of 84% critics and 83% audience.