Neon’s horror comedy “The Monkey” is seeing and doing a strong opening weekend, though it’ll take silver at the box office behind Disney’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” still on top of the charts but facing a substantial tumble in its second weekend.
“The Monkey” chopped into an estimated $5.8 million from 3,200 theaters across Friday and preview screenings. That puts it on track for Neon’s second-biggest opening weekend ever, only falling behind director Osgood Perkins‘ prior horror film at the banner, last summer’s breakout “Longlegs.” Reviews have been positive for this follow-up, though audiences are mixed with ticketbuyer survey firm Cinema Score logging a “C+.” Horror films skew lower in those polls though; beyond that, “Longlegs” notched the same middling grade before legging out a healthy 3.31x multiplier on its opening weekend.
Even only taking into account this opening weekend, “The Monkey” is in a great position. At a production budget of around $10 million, the film is primed to turn a substantial profit in theaters. Perkins and Neon’s next film, “Keeper,” is already slated to hit theaters in October. “The Monkey” is a more comical turn for Perkins, adapting a Stephen King story about two brothers (Theo James) who see everyone around them begin to die at the hands of a devilish toy primate.
Even with a heroic $100 million opening weekend over the President’s Day holiday, “Captain America: Brave New World” wasn’t ready to be declared a theatrical success. With reviews leaning negative and an alarming Marvel Cinematic Universe low “B-” grade on Cinema Score, it was all eyes on this second frame to see how the comic book adaptation would weather ho-hum buzz.
The “Captain America” revival added another $7.2 million on Friday, putting it on track to avoid breaking the MCU-record of a 78% drop earned by “The Marvels” in November 2023. But “Brave New World” seems likely to hold similarly to 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which also opened on a Presidents’ Day weekend before it plummeted 70% in its second outing. “Quantumania” became a bomb, unable to even double its $120 million opening weekend. It’d be a disappointment if “Brave New World” suffered a similar, sharp decline.
Sony’s release of “Paddington in Peru” gets third place, earning another $1.5 million on Friday and projecting $6.5 million (a 48% drop) for this second weekend. The StudioCanal production has an outside shot of passing a $25 million domestic total through its first 10 days of release. That’s about on pace with “Paddington 2,” which earned the same amount through its second weekend in 2017.
Universal’s “Dog Man” is fetching fourth after earning $1.3 million on Friday. The DreamWorks Animation caper is eyeing $5.7 million for its fourth weekend, which would mark a 41% decline. Total domestic gross should hit $78 million through Sunday.
Fifth place once again went to the Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” with rivals projecting a 63% fall for a $2.8 million haul in this second weekend. Of course, the epic has already crossed a staggering $1 billion in its native country, becoming the highest-grossing animated movie ever and ranking in the global box office’s all-time top 10. So this stateside gross isn’t even a cherry on top — maybe a peanut at best.
Opening outside the top five, Lionsgate is finally releasing the Zachary Levi drama “The Unbreakable Boy,” nearly three years after its originally slated release date. The long-shelved film is looking to do $2.4 million this weekend across 1,687 venues.
