“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” pulled off its witty wizardry, outperforming Glen Powell’s big-budget action thriller “The Running Man” and “Predator: Badlands,” the critically acclaimed reboot of the long-running monster franchise, in their second weekends.
The third film, Now You See Me, grossed $21.3 million last weekend, a solid showing for a series that hasn’t had a new film since 2016. The film also grossed $54.2 million in 64 international territories this weekend, and $75.5 million worldwide.
“This is still a viable franchise,” says Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at ComScore. “Audiences around the world have really responded to this film.”
That’s good news for Lionsgate, the studio behind the $90 million illusionist adventure, which has failed to deliver many hits in recent months (the list of failures also includes “Ballerina” and “Good Fortune”). The Housemaid, an adaptation of Frieda McFadden’s best-selling potboiler, will be released in theaters in December, and the Michael Jackson biopic Michael and The Hunger Games: Sunrise of the Reap will be released in 2026, potentially marking a change in the studio’s fortunes. Ruben Fleischer, who previously directed Venom and Zombieland, directed Now. You See Me: Now You Don’t stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco as a group of magicians extorting money from the corrupt 1 percent. A fourth film is in production.
“We gave our viewers exactly what they wanted,” says Kevin Grayson, head of domestic distribution for Lionsgate. He claimed that “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” was able to expand its audience by bringing back the series’ mainstays and adding a new generation of stars such as Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt. “The new cast helped bring in younger moviegoers,” Grayson added.
“Running Man,” a collaboration between Powell and cult director Edgar Wright, finished a lackluster second place with $17 million, falling short of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.” Internationally, the film grossed $11.2 million, with a worldwide box office total of $28.2 million. This is an alarming result considering Paramount spent $110 million making the film. It’s also the first stumble for Powell since he began building a fan following with hits like romantic comedies “Anyone But You,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” and “Twisters.” Ah, bad news for Coach Wright. It should have been a box office hit after its previous film, Last Night in Soho, but unfortunately it was forced to release in 2021 due to the arrival of Omicron. Going into the weekend, Paramount was hoping the film would open to more than $20 million. “The Running Man” was greenlit and produced long before David Ellison’s Skydance took control of Paramount in August.
“This is dead in the water,” says exhibitor relations analyst Jeff Bock. “We don’t have enough traction to get through the upcoming holiday season.”
The weekend’s two major new releases appealed to slightly different demographics. The audience for “Running Man” was 63% male and 70% between the ages of 18 and 44, while the opening audience for “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” was 54% female and 65% over the age of 25.
Running Man is Stephen King’s second attempt at adapting a dystopian novel into a film. The first was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s creepy 1987 film. And Schwarzenegger also has ties to Predator: Badlands, having starred in the original film of the series, which was released in 1987 during the heyday of action heroes. In its second weekend, Predator: Badlands plummeted 68% to $13 million, bringing the domestic box office total for the 20th Century Studios release to $66.3 million. The film cost $105 million to make and grossed $136.3 million worldwide.
The weekend’s other big release, Neon’s “The Keeper,” the latest indie horror feature from writer-director Osgood Perkins, debuted at No. 7 and earned a paltry $2.5 million. That’s a pale shadow of what Perkins’ previous films, “Long Legs” ($22 million) and “The Monkey” ($14 million), made in their opening weekends. Critics hated the film, but audiences seemed to agree, giving it a “D+” rating, so word of mouth probably won’t help. The only saving grace is that The Keeper only cost $6 million to make. Perkins will try to regain his commercial touch with next year’s “The Young People,” starring Tatiana Maslany and Nicole Kidman.
Paramount’s “Regretting You,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel of the same name, reached No. 4 in its fourth week of release, earning $4 million. This brings the domestic total to $44.9 million. Universal’s “The Black Phone 2” rounded out the top five with $2.6 million, pushing the U.S. box office to $74.7 million five weeks after its release.
In groundbreaking news, One Battle After Another has grossed over $70 million domestically and $200 million worldwide after eight weekends in theaters. That would be a good showing for an R-rated adult thriller, except for the fact that Warner Bros. gave director Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio $140 million to make the film. Critics called it a masterpiece and the film received Oscar buzz, but the studio is expecting a very large write-down, considering One Battle After Another needed box office sales of about $300 million to break even.
Overall, the domestic box office hit a record high of just over $75 million, slightly above the $73.2 million in the same period last year, when Dwayne Johnson’s holiday comedy “Red One” boosted revenue. The release of “Wicked: For Good” next weekend will give new hope to theater owners who have suffered the worst downturn in movie industry history. To stimulate the economy, Universal re-released “Wicked,” bringing in $1.2 million.
“We are in the calm before the Thanksgiving storm,” Dergarabedian says. “Things are about to heat up.”
