After ending a box office drought with “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners,” Warner Bros. continued its recent hot streak this weekend with New Line’s “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” which earned an excellent $51 million opening weekend from 3,523 theaters.
“Bloodlines” is the first “Final Destination” movie released in 14 years, but has earned far and away the most successful opening weekend in the history of the franchise even after inflation adjustment. The series record previously belong to 2009’s “The Final Destination” with a $27.4 million opening, or $41 million in today’s figures.
Nostalgia from millennials who watched the films about Death hunting those that escape its grasp back in their high school and college years is a major factor, but “Bloodlines” is also getting a big boost from the best reception the series has ever earned, including Rotten Tomatoes scores of 93% critics and 89% audience to go with a B+ on CinemaScore.
While it will face significant four-quadrant competition from Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” and Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” this word of mouth could help “Bloodlines” find some legs as an R-rated alternative on Memorial Day weekend as it continues its run to become the highest grossing “Final Destination” film ever, needing only to reach $188 million worldwide after a $102 million global start.
For Warner Bros., this launch adds to the incredible success it has enjoyed with “A Minecraft Movie,” which added $6 million in its seventh weekend for a $416 million domestic total, and “Sinners,” which has earned an excellent $15.3 million fifth weekend to cross $300 million worldwide with $240 million from North America.
It is shaping up to be a very bright summer for the studio, which will continue in June as it releases the Apple-produced “F1,” followed by Warner’s biggest release of the year, “Superman,” in July.
On the flip side, the other new wide release this weekend, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is joining “Shadow Force” as the second straight bust for Lionsgate in as many weekends, opening to just $3.3 million from 2,020 theaters and outside of the top 5 on the weekend charts.
The only good news for this companion film to The Weeknd’s recently released album is that Lionsgate won’t take a financial hit from it as it is only a distributor on the title. But only The Weeknd’s most ardent fans seem to have been pleased by it as “Hurry Up Tomorrow” has Rotten Tomatoes scores of just 17% critics and 72% audience to go with a C- on CinemaScore.
Lionsgate will look to turn things around next month with the release of its John Wick spinoff “Ballerina.”
Among holdovers, Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*” is starting to see its momentum tail off with $16.5 million in its third weekend, bringing its running total to $155 million domestic and $325 million worldwide.
That’s approximately 5% behind the $163 million domestic/$342 million global total of “Captain America: Brave New World” after three weekends, putting “Thunderbolts*” on pace for a lukewarm final total around the $415 million cume of its most recent MCU predecessor despite having stronger critical and audience reception.
“Thunderbolts*” took second on this weekend’s charts, with the aforementioned “Sinners” and “A Minecraft Movie” in third and fourth, respectively. Amazon MGM’s “The Accountant 2” takes fifth with just under $5 million in its fifth weekend for a $59 million domestic total.
Finally, A24’s dark comedy “Friendship” expanded to 60 theaters this weekend and made $1.4 million for a strong per theater average of $23,338 ahead of its limited nationwide expansion next weekend.
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