This year’s Labor Day weekend was so sleepy for movie ticket sales that a 50-year-old shark thriller chewed up and spit out most of the competition.
The re-release of Universal Pictures’ “Jaws,” the Stephen Spielberg classic from 1975, finished second at the box office ($9.9 million) behind Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Weapons” ($12.78 million) for the holiday weekend, according to Comscore data.
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Labor Day weekend box office earnings totaled about $82.9 million from Friday to Monday, short of the $100 million mark achieved in 2023 ($115 million) and 2024 ($104.9 million).
It’s not surprising to see a dip in ticket sales leading into the first week of September. Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory, told celebrity.land that Labor Day weekend is typically a time to “catch up” on movies that came out later in the summer.
American moviegoers don’t appear to be fully caught up on Zach Cregger’s “Weapons,” which has maintained its stranglehold on the box office, earning $134.79 million since opening in wide release on August 8. “Weapons” was briefly overtaken last weekend when Netflix’s two-day run of “KPop Demon Hunters” took the weekend top spot with $18 million.
“’Weapons’ found itself in a position to take most of the oxygen and run with it,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore, adding that Cregger was building off the success of his 2022 film “Barbarian.”
An audience watches previews ahead of a “Weapons” screening in Decatur, Georgia, on Sunday, August 17. – Brook Joyner/celebrity.land
“Weapons” has finished No. 1 at the box office in 22 of its 25 days in theaters and stayed at the top spot this holiday weekend, even as “Jaws” was re-released in 3,200 theaters. Robbins noted that the weekend success of “Jaws” wasn’t a negative for the new releases.
“It just speaks to the fact that ‘Jaws’ remains an incredibly popular film,” said Robbins. “It’s more of a compliment to ‘Jaws’ than an insult to anything else.”
Sony’s “Caught Stealing” ($9.6 million), which topped the box office on Friday, and Disney’s “Freakier Friday” ($8.3 million), finished third and fourth, respectively, at the four-day weekend box office.
Disney’s Searchlight Pictures’ “The Roses,” a retelling of the 1989 comedy “The War of the Roses,” opened this weekend to $8 million Friday through Monday.
A bittersweet end to the summer
The summer movie season has consistently been the biggest boon for Hollywood. Dergarabedian estimates that, on average, the summer accounts for as much as 40% of annual box office earnings.
The season’s total box office wrapped up with an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Comscore, which tracks summer earnings from the first Friday in May through the first Monday of September. This summer fell short of reaching $4 billion, a post-pandemic milestone that was only achieved in 2023 due in large part to the “Barbenheimer” craze.
“We would have hoped … to not kind of end the summer with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. But for the experiences that people are having in the theater right now, I think we can say it’s been a terrific summer,” Dergarabedian said.
There was a broad slate of genres, spanning horror, comedy, family animations and action, which continued to drive moviegoers to theaters, he added.
Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($422 million), the highest earner of the summer, opened Memorial Day weekend and helped lift the May box office up 76% from the previous year, according to Comscore.
Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Superman” ($351.7 million) and Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World Rebirth” ($336 million) were also top performers this year.
Robbins noted that Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which opens Friday, could help the September box office beat analysts’ expectations.
“It’s horror, it’s the start of spooky season,” he said. “That’s going to make for a good kick off to the movie season coming up.”
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