Key Points
The Devil Wears Prada 2 narrowly defeated Mortal Kombat 2 in the weekend’s box office brawl.
The fashion-centric sequel scored $43 million domestically in its second weekend in theaters, while the fantasy fight film drummed up $40 million.
Next week, both films will have to contend with a new fighter from a dangerous genre, when horror film Obsession challenges Prada‘s box office dominance.
Raiden may be the god of thunder and all the skies. But he’s no match for Miranda Priestly.
Mortal Kombat 2 fought valiantly, but not even the buzzing enthusiasm of the action sequel’s premiere could outdo the enduring fervor for The Devil Wears Prada 2, which topped a second weekend at the box office.
But the mid-May battle of the sequels was a close match. The fashion-centric comedy 20 years in the making clinched its victory with $43 million in its second weekend in theaters, per box office tracker Comscore. Simon McQuoid’s follow-up to his 2021 adaptation of the gruesome, fantasy fighting games, meanwhile, drummed up $40 million in its premiere.
Globally, Prada added an astounding $118.8 million, for a cumulative $433.2 million on a $100 million budget. It’s here where the gap between the two significantly widens. Mortal Kombat only garnered $63 million globally — a fine start for a film made on an estimated $55 million budget, but not enough to hold onto the No. 2 on the global leaderboard, a spot that went to Michael Jackson biopic Michael, which added $95 million in week three for a $577.3 million gross.
Hugh Jackman in ‘The Sheep Detectives’
Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
The Devil Wears Prada 2‘s marvelous box office performance is a boon to distributor 20th Century Studios, which hasn’t had a real hit since Avatar: Fire and Ash burned down the box office in December. It’s also a major win for the ensemble, setting a new record in Streep’s illustrious career for highest performing premiere.
Coming in at No. 3 on the domestic leaderboard this weekend is Michael, which is still stepping strong with a $36.5 million week 3 take. Despite arriving in theaters on a cloud of controversy, the film directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jaafar Jackson, the King of Pop’s nephew, has become one of the most successful films of the year, more than making up its enormous estimated budget of $200 million.
The other big premiere of the weekend was much more modestly scaled, but the lighthearted mystery comedy The Sheep Detectives may not have been modest enough in its production spend to justify its premiere gross of $15.9 million. Globally, the film added another $12 million, but with an estimated $75 million budget — that doesn’t factor in marketing and promotional expenses — Amazon MGM Studios now has a financial mystery that the movie’s streaming value will have to solve.
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Elsewhere on the domestic and global charts, Billie Eilish’s new documentary Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour debuted to $7.5 million domestically, which earned it the No. 5 spot overall. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie continues to clean up with a $6.6 million week 6 take, making for a $412 domestic gross and $941.2 million globally. If Nintendo can keep it up, they’ll soon have another billion-dollar success on their hands.
Next week, one film may be in the position to upset The Devil Wears Prada 2‘s reign at the box office.
Though it lacks in any serious stars, popular YouTuber Curry Barker’s Obsession has benefitted not only from a widespread promotional campaign, but rave word-of-mouth notices following from his viral, micro-budget 2024 feature Milk & Serial.
Obsession represents a massive investment in the budding young filmmaker by studios Blumhouse and Focus Features, which handled the production and distribution, respectively. But still, Barker kept Obsession‘s estimated budget at a startlingly low $1 million, meaning the bar for success should be quite easy to clear.
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