As expected, the superhero epic Wonder Woman 1984 took the top spot at the domestic box office with an estimated $16.7M from 2,151 theaters. That total tops Tenet’s $9.3M 3-day Labor Day weekend and The Croods: A New Age’s $9.7M 3-day haul over the Black Friday weekend. Internationally, Patty Jenkins’ sequel added an additional $19.4M, raising its worldwide running total to $85M. The pic earned $2.2M from 460 IMAX screens around the world, including $1.2M from 180 domestic screens.
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It’s a good — not great — start for Wonder Woman, which opened simultaneously on HBO Max. China continues to offer disappointing returns, but the pic played well during its opening weekend in Australia with $4.5M on 650 screens, $2.5M in Korea and India where it hauled in the biggest Hollywood opening of the year, according to Deadline.
Warner Bros. just announced it will fast track WW3 to be written and directed by Jenkins.
Back on the domestic front, the Tom Hanks drama News of the World collected $2.4M from 1,900 theaters for the No. 2 spot, bumping Croods: A New Age down to No. 3 with $1.7M ($30.3M in its fifth week of release). The only other new releases didn’t make too much noise, namely Promising Young Woman ($680K) and Pinocchio ($275K).
Elsewhere, Pixar’s Soul had a nice start in 10 overseas markets where the animated pic collected $7.6M including $5.5M in China. Per Deadline, the opening in the Middle Kingdom is double what Onward did way back in March.
Meanwhile, Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train has now become the highest-grossing movie in Japan’s history with an astonishing $313M total, trumping the previous tally set by 2001’s Spirited Away.
Finally, Croods snagged another $9.2M worldwide to bring its global cume to $98.3M.
