‘Obsession’ Defies Gravity in Week 5
Spielberg’s UFO movis is his top opening for original movie, while Curry Barker’s horror hit is the rare movie to have 4 consecutive weekends bigger than its opening.
Spielberg’s $115 million budgeted UFO landed at around $44 million domestically and $93.9 million globally this weekend/
It is a solid, but not spectacular, start for the filmmaker’s first popcorn movie in 8 years, since he released Ready Player One to $53.7 million in America on its way to $583.5 million globally.
It is Spielberg’s top-grossing opening weekend domestically for original feature, as well as 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 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.
Paramount holdover Scary Movie should hit No. 3 in its second weekend, with around $15 million and a decline of around 70 percent, while Kane Parsons’ Gen Z hit Backgrooms 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.
Michael 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.
