‘Novocaine’ Takes Top Box Office Spot With 8.7 Million In Low Weekend

In a depressing progression of events, the weekend of March 13th to 16th has shaped up to be one of the worst of the year for the box office. While definitely impacted by a decline in attendance for theaters despite offering a wide variety of films, theaters just haven’t been able to hit the same highs of 2024 capped off with films consistently hitting under-projection estimates between openings adding to the list. The top two films for this week were both new and appealed to a good portion of the audience’s taste being action comedy and an action thriller with hints of romance those films being Novocaine and Black Bag. After being dethroned from last week and an extremely sharp decline Mickey 17 came in third for its second week. Novocaine took home 8.7 million, Black Bag 7.5 million, and Mickey 17 timing with 7.5 million as well. For what Hollywood Reporter has referred to as one of the worst (weekends) in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, pressure for upcoming releases of March to help the theaters bounce back from the two-week slump has only grown.

While there is no certainty that Universal’s Minecraft movie and Disney’s Snow White will not fall into the same underperformance from projections that Novocaine and Mickey 17 have suffered there is no denying that inflation has likely had a much larger impact on theater-goers being more selective of their choices due to cost and the major options not being as family-friendly for younger audiences or appealing to groups of certain demographics. It is possible due to the major studio repetition of sequels, remakes, and shared universes dominating silver screens for the last two decades original film productions have been underperforming in theaters despite their positive responses by not being able to compete with the rest of the library or the much more appealing option of streaming them later and waiting

The rest of the box office is fairly typical with Captain America Brave New World coming in on the 4th likely nearing its own streaming release after 5 weeks in theaters with 5.4 million. The top five though was cushioned by another new release Looney Tunes The Day the Earth Blew Up the first fully animated feature-length film to be theatrically released by Warner Brothers after solid reception at festivals feeding to the decision to have a theatrical release. While only bringing home 3.17 million for its opening weekend its presence in the top five continues to feed the hope of fans that there may be an eventual release for the canceled Coyote vs. Acme after confirmation of the funeral screening confirmed the film had finished production.

Looney Tunes managed to beat, Paddington in Peru which held on landing in 7th this week after being Paddington was also defeated by another newcomer to the table the Last Supper from an indie Christian production which Beat It by only a few hundred thousand.

The bottom of the top 10 were the oldest films in theaters outside of Brave New World being Dog Man, The Monkey and Last Breath respectively that managed to shut out A24 newcomer Opus which for its opening week flopped only making 1 million.

With pretty much every major Studio having a direct streaming service with theatrical releases going to those Services 5 to 6 weeks on average afterward it’s also clear that theaters are no longer going to be the only box office tallied for successful runs for new films. Multiple films have seen massive comebacks on streaming while still not nearly as large as a theater outing Streaming has been able to consistently command audience numbers regardless of which service is providing the film.

On a happier note Paul Degarabedian the Comscore Chief Box Office Analyst shared with the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s pretty low it certainly isn’t the worst. This is another in a series of $50 million range domestic weekends. This will change next week!” showing sometimes slow weekends can just happen for films not matter how good occasionally.

The Weekend Box Office is as follows.

1.) Novocaine Weekend $8.7M, Total $8.7M Week 1

2.) Black Bag Weekend $7.5M Total $7.5M Week 1

2.) Mickey 17 Weekend $7.5M, Total $33.2M Week 2

4.) Captain America: Brave New World Weekend $5.47M, Total $185.3M Week 5

5.) Looney Tunes, The Day the Earth Blew Up, Weekend $3.17M, Total $3.17M Week 1

6.) The Last Supper Weekend $2.82M, Total $2.82M Week 1

7.) Paddington in Peru Weekend $2.77M, Total $41.3M Week 5

8.) Dog Man Weekend $2.5M, Total $92.8M Week 7

9.) The Monkey Weekend $2.46M, Total $35.2M Week 4

10.) Last Breath Weekend $2.3M Total $18.5M Week 3

Notable inclusion-

Opus (A24) Weekend $1M Total $1M Week 1