‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Tops Domestic Box Office as ‘The Flash’ Plummets (2024)

As last week’s number one film, The Flash, had a historic drop, it made room for holdover releases to occupy the top spots at this weekend’s domestic box office. Two animated movies, Sony's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Disney's Elemental, took the top two spots at the box office this weekend, after a closely contested race that came right down to the wire (and might actually look very different tomorrow, once the actuals come in). All this signals that family audiences remain underserved this summer movie season, and old franchises just aren't cutting it anymore.

But as of now, Across the Spider-Verse is estimated to have reclaimed the top spot after two weeks. While it debuted to excellent numbers in its first weekend, it spent the following two frames at the number two and number three spots, with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Flash providing a temporary distraction to audiences. But with both those movies plummeting, Across the Spider-Verse swung back into pole position with $19.3 million in its fourth weekend, taking its running domestic total to $317 million. The movie passed the half-billion mark worldwide last week.

Elemental was all but written off after its $29 million debut — the second-lowest in Pixar’s history — but the movie seems to be showing signs of life as it slid a soft 39% this weekend for a second-place finish with $18.5 million. This takes the film’s running domestic total to $65 million. While there’s still no chance of it being able to match the box office performances of some of Pixar’s past hits (or even some of the studio’s flops), at least it’ll be able to put up a somewhat respectable total when all is said and done. Narrowly claiming the number three spot this weekend after registering one of the worst second-weekend drops for a superhero movie (73%), DC’s The Flash generated $15.3 million. The movie still hasn’t passed the $100 million mark domestically after 10 days in theaters and is struggling worldwide as well. Warner Bros. has already had to deal with back-to-back flops Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash — billed by the studio in the run-up as one of the greatest superhero movies ever made — isn’t going to be the one to turn Warner Bros’ fortunes around. All everybody can do at this point is just put the past behind them and focus on the rebooted DC Universe that co-CEO James Gunn is putting together.

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This week's big new release, Sony’s No Hard Feelings took the number four spot after topping the box office on Friday. The film is notable for being one of the rare R-rated studio comedies to get a proper theatrical release in the post-pandemic era. Starring Jennifer Lawrence as a millennial woman who is hired to “date” an introverted young man, No Hard Feelings made an encouraging $15.1 million in its debut weekend of release, as it played in over 3,200 theaters.

The DCEU Wasn't the Only Franchise to Tumble This Weekend

Rounding out the top five is Rise of the Beasts, yet another $200 million tent-pole that isn’t performing as well as anybody involved would’ve liked. The sixth film in the long-running action franchise could gross only $11.6 million in its third weekend, taking its running domestic total to $122 million. Globally, the movie passed the $300 million mark this week. While it’ll most definitely be able to overtake direct predecessor Bumblebee’s lifetime domestic haul of $127 million, if Rise of the Beasts isn’t able to pass that film’s $465 million lifetime global haul, Paramount might have to reconsider its big plans for the franchise’s future.

But here’s a bit of encouraging news to bring the curtain down: Wes Anderson’s new film, Asteroid City, successfully expanded nationwide this weekend after delivering record numbers in limited release a week ago. The film grossed $9 million from a little over 1,600 domestic theaters, putting it on course for one of Anderson’s best domestic box office performances. You can watch our interview with Asteroid City stars Scarlett Johansson and Jason Schwartzman below, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.