Thor: Love and Thunder was subject to the the same mid-60% dip suffered by most MCU films in their second frame, yet still managed to hold on to the top spot at the U.S. box-office this weekend with a take of $46M.
The Taika Waititi-directed sequel fell 68% over its sophomore frame, taking its domestic total to $233M. It’s on par with the performance of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which dipped 67% in its second weekend, although that film opened with over $100M more than Thor: Love and Thunder, and went on to gross over $400M, something the middling reviews and lukewarm word-of-mouth will probably prevent Thor from achieving.
While its worldwide cume approaches $500M, Thor seems to be performing a little closer to the MCU’s pandemic affected titles such as Shang-Chi and Black Widow.
Way behind but exceeding expectations set by the lacklustre reviews (read our own ★★ take here), Sony Pictures literary adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing earned $17M over the weekend. The Reece Witherspoon produced movie, which stars Normal People breakout Daisy Edgar-Jones, took advantage of the books popularity and some canny counter-programming to land in third place.
Sandwiched between the two were those little yella fellas from Minions: The Rise of Gru, who took home another $26M, taking their domestic cume to a Lightyear ($115M) trouncing $262M at the domestic box-office, and $532M worldwide. Spare a thought for Paramount’s new cartoon adventure though, with Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank’s paltry $6M debut among the lowest in recent memory for animated movie, pandemic era or otherwise.
The studio won’t be feeling too downbeat though, because Top Gun: Maverick’s eighth weekend take of $12M puts it on the brink of the top ten grossing domestic movies of all time, and brings its current total to $618M at the North-American box-office and a whopping $1.237 billion worldwide.
As always check out the full rundown, including Elvis crossing the $100M mark and Jurassic World Dominion passing $900M in global receipts, over at BoxOfficeMojo.