In its second weekend in theaters, MGM and director Emma Seligman’s teen comedy Bottoms broke into the top ten films for the weekend (no. 7) on 715 screens, a major North America expansion from a 10-theater opening last week. An estimated $3 million gross for the three days, and $3.6 million for the four-day Labor Day holiday (PSA $4,206 and $5,019 respectively) means the film will continue to expand, with about 1,200 screens planned for next weekend.
Estimated cume to date is $4.3+ million for the $11.3 million-budget title produced by Elizabeth Banks, Max Handelman and Alison Small. It’s holding a 95% Fresh rating from critics and a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes with exit polling continuing strong in week two as it ventured outside the coasts, with organic social buzz and young audiences driving ticket sales.
Meanwhile, A4’s Talk To Me, the low-budget breakout hit from Australian brothers, popular YouTubers and first-time filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou is A24’s highest grossing horror pic ever with an estimated cume of $44.575 million over the four days on 1,075 screens – passing Hereditary’s $44.069 million. The film opened with a blast in late July becoming the distributor’s top debut since Ari Aster’s 2018 film. Now it’s no. ten at the domestic box office in week 6 with a $1.76 million three-day weekend and $2.24 million for the four days.
Back to Bottoms: It wasn’t a slam dunk that the raunchy comedy about two queer high school girls (Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri) who start a fight club would play as well as it is outside NY and LA and into the burbs. But MGM said exits continue to be well above norms with 91% in the top two boxes and an 86% definite recommend, with the film playing both suburban and urban — and young. Audiences are 80% 18-34, and 48% between 25-34. MGM says social conversation around the film ranks among the highest volume of any theatrical comedy that’s opened this decade.
Weekend breakdown: Fri. – $1.3M; Sat. -$875k; Sun. – $832k; Mon. – $582k.
Other specialty holdovers: Bleecker Street’s Golda by Guy Nattiv, starring Helen Mirren, will gross an estimated $769,723 for the three days and $971,647 for the four in week 2 on 791 screens. That’s a PSA of $973 and $1,228 respectively, and a total cume of $3.38 million.
Golda: Fri. – $183,745; Sat. $316,745; Sun. – $269,233; Mon. $201,924.
For The Hill, by Jeff Celentano, starring Dennis Quad, distributor Briarcliff is projecting a 3-day gross of $1.44M, off only 38% from last weekend, and a 4-day gross of $1.91M in week 2 at 1,703 locations, for a total cume of $5.2 million.
There aren’t many numbers yet for the few new openings this weekend, but one, Vertical’s The Good Mother, starring Hilary Swank, directed by Miles Joris-Payrafitte, reported a three-day estimated cume of $304k and a four-day cume of $367k on 419 screens.