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SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE 2 opening | THE BOOGEYMAN opening | May 2023 and YTD moviegoing update | June 2 to 4, 2023 weekend

Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary

David A. Gross

Jun 4, 2023

1) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 2 opening

- This is an exceptionally good opening for an animation follow-up sequel. On average, animation episode 2s hold their audience. This weekend’s start is an est. +222% higher than the first film’s. Previously, The Incredibles and Shrek had the biggest jumps in their 2nd openings (+159% and +155%, respectively) — this is bigger. Spider-Verse is a juggernaut now, with #3 scheduled in March 2024:

Spider-Verse took a well-liked superhero, gave the storytelling an original visual style and voice, and created a unique experience. The look, tone, and point-of-view are entirely fresh. This is inspired commercial filmmaking. Critics and audiences are thrilled.

2) The Boogeyman opening

- This is a good start for a single-episode horror film. At the same time, as a horror series launch, the opening is below average. Business is not on the level of the last five Stephen King openings. Reviews are fair:

Stephen King has provided strong source material for a broad body of theatrical work. Boogeyman is based on a 1973 Stephen King short story, rather than on one of his novels.

3) May 2023 and year-to-date moviegoing update

- In May, the domestic box office was down -30.6% compared with May’s 2019/2018/2017 pre-pandemic average. Year-to-date, the box office is now down -24.4%. Both figures are lower in May than they were in April because May 2019 and 2018 had the last two Avengers movies, and that once-in-a-decade series pushed the pre-pandemic numbers through the roof.

If the Avengers films were replaced with “regular big hits,” then year-to-date business would continue in May at approx. -21.5%. But we can't replace the Avengers movies in the averages. The May figures continue to compare very favorably with 2022.
Fast X
May domestic business was driven by Guardians 3, Fast & Furious 10, Little Mermaid, and holdover Super Mario. We've had three outstanding animation releases now: Super Mario, Little Mermaid, and Spider-Verse. If moviegoing is a habit, then family moviegoers appear to be getting back into it. That’s excellent.
- During its opening weekend, Little Mermaid had its public audience reviews sabotaged, motivated by racial hatred. Fortunately, it has not slowed the film's domestic performance; however, it has slowed the film overseas:

- In May, the wide release count was 13 (on 1,000 screens or more), which is similar to 14 in 2019. We still see a solid 130 wide releases by the end of the year, including 54 franchise titles, which is approaching normal (2019 had 58 franchise films, 2018 had 62).

June has Spider-Verse 2, Transformers 6, Elemental/Pixar, The Flash/DC Comics, and No Hard Feelings. Overall, business has been steady. We haven't had a big upside surprise yet this summer. If Spider-Verse takes hold now, this might be it. We are still optimistic about the 2023 lineup ahead.

[Methodology note: For our box office comparisons, we take the complete weeks of each month (each week runs Friday to Thursday), and we line up the same weeks across the years, so the comparisons cover the same # of weeks, same # of days and same day mix. That’s the most accurate approach for these comparisons.]