‘Disclosure Day’ Touches Down With $44 Million Opening, ‘Obsession’ Defies Gravity in Week 5 – Hollywood Reporter
Steven Spielberg’s UFO movie will be his top opening for an original movie, while Curry Barker’s horror hit is the rare movie to have four consecutive weekends bigger than its opening.
The original summer movie filmmaker met the new generation of directors this weekend, with Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day entering the fray amid a summer dominated by Gen Z hits Obsession and Backrooms.
Spielberg’s $115 million budgeted UFO will land at around $44 million domestically and $93.9 million globally this weekend, a solid start for the filmmaker’s first popcorn movie in eight years, since he released Ready Player One to $53.7 million in North America on its way to $583.5 million globally.
It will become Spielberg’s top-grossing opening weekend domestically for an original feature, as well as his company Amblin’s biggest original opening.
The film is appealing to older audiences, with 59 percent over 35, while 57 percent of the audience is male.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker conceived of the story, and then handed it off to his Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp to pen the sci-fi thriller about the race to reveal that extraterrestrial life is among us. Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor are among the cast, with critics granting it strong reviews and audiences giving it a B CinemaScore.
Curry Barker’s word-of-mouth hit, Obsession, continues to breathe rarified air at the box office and is expected to bring in $19 million in its fifth weekend, declining just 25 percent. It will hit No. 2 and is the rare movie to have four consecutive weekends bigger than its opening ($17.2 million). The feature has broken numerous records for Focus, including becoming its biggest movie domestically and globally for the studio. It looks to end the weekend with a domestic haul of $188.3 million.
In international markets, Obsession is pacing ahead of horror hits such as Weapons, Nosferatu and Sinners at the same points in their lifespans. It is expected to end the weekend with $77.5 million internationally for a global haul of $265.8 million.
Paramount holdover Scary Movie is expected to hit No. 3 in its second weekend, with around $15 million and a decline of around 70 percent, while Kane Parsons’ Gen Z hit Backrooms is bringing in $11.2 million in its third weekend, to bring its domestic haul to a hefty $160 million. Globally, it will end the weekend at $262.3 million. The A24 film cost just $10 million to produce and is based on Parsons’ series of viral YouTube shorts.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Masters of the Universe is a non-factor in its second weekend, where the pricey adaptation of the Gen X favorite is expected to gross $9.2 million, declining 69 percent.
Michael, meanwhile, continued its record-breaking run, with Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson film becoming the top-grossing biopic of all time in recent days, adding $4.6 million to its domestic haul this weekend with its global tally topping the $911 million collected by Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
