Weekend box office – Glass opens soft at no.1, Dragon Ball film surprises

I couldn’t wait for Glass to either blow away the competition or completely bomb at the box office this weekend past. See I had all these puns lined up all about “shattered records” or “cracked performance” etc. Unfortunately, Glass came in exactly about average. Hey, I guess you could say it was neither… half full or half empty! Nailed it!

While Night Shyamalan’s unexpected sequel to Unbreakable and Split had been tracking for a huge $80 million opening in the US alone, not-so-nice reviews lowered those predictions in the last few weeks. In the end, Glass even came in a little short of the studio’s reworked $50 million estimates with a $40.5 million debut. This is actually a 4-day weekend in the US thanks to Martin Luther King Day today so more money will be made to take it in line with estimates, but that 3-day total was already enough to grab the top spot in the US.

Meanwhile, Glass more than doubled its domestic figures on the international market with another $48.5 million. With a global total just shy of $89 million on a $20 million budget (all of which was financed by Shyamalan out of his own money), the film is undoubtedly a financial success already, even if it’s not quite as big some had hoped it would be.

Holding firm in 2nd place, The Upside used a moderate expansion to add another $15.6 million. That wasn’t the other big story in the top 3 though. The only other newcomer on the charts this weekend past, anime spinoff feature film Dragon Ball Super: Broly blew away all expectations as it kamehameha’d its way into 3rd place with a $10.6 million weekend take after pulling in another combined $10.4 million from Wednesday/Thursday preview screenings. Outside of Glass, the FUNimation Film production actually had the biggest per-theatre-average weekend earning on the charts by a huge margin. The film has already been playing in some international markets for weeks now and has earned just short of $87 million worldwide.

Superheroes round out the top 5 as Aquaman falls to just barely gets beaten by Dragon Ball and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse holds down the middle of the charts. In the case of Aquaman, the additional $10.3 million was enough to push its domestic total past the $300 million mark.

There wasn’t much else noteworthy on the domestic charts this weekend past, but Bumblebee (which is sitting in 9th in the US) pulled in another $20.9 million to help push its global tally past the $400 million milestone. Thanks to a strong international reception (and it is still to open in Japan, traditionally a very strong market for Transformers), the reboot/prequel has quietly become a solid box office success story.

Let’s see what the rest of the US box office chart looks like:

[table ai=”1/No.” class=”table table-striped” tablesorter=”1″]
Movie Name, Weekend gross, Percentage change, US Domestic gross, Worldwide gross, Last Week’s Position

Glass,$40.5 million,NE,$40.5 million,$89 million,NE

The Upside,$15.6 million,-23%,$43.9 million,$48 million,2nd

Dragon Ball Super: Broly,$10.6 million,NE,$21 million,$86.9 million,NE

Aquaman,$10.3 million,-40%,$304 million,$1.06 billion,2nd

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,$7.2 million,-19%,$158.2 million,$322.8 million,4th

A Dog’s Way Home,$7.1 million,-36%,$21.2 million,$26.3 million,3rd

Escape Room,$5.2 million,-40%,$40.7 million,$53.7 million,5th

Mary Poppins Returns,$5.2 million,-31%,$158.7 million,$306 million,6th

Bumblebee,$4.6 million,-35%,$115.9 million,$412.3 million,7th

On the Basis of Sex,$3.9 million,-34%,$16.8 million,$17.5 million,8th

[/table]

NE = New Entry