While April was an overall busy month in theaters with plenty of films hitting the screen, the month looks to be going out on a relatively quiet note at the box office. One film was still able to make a splash, though, as the Zendaya-led Challengers managed to serve an ace on its opening weekend to take the top spot.
The Luca Guadagnino-directed sexually-charged sports drama took the number one spot at the domestic box office with relative ease, taking home $15 million on the back of generally positive reviews for the Zendaya-vehicle according to Variety. An additional $10 million internationally brought the worldwide total to $25 million, though it remains to be seen if the film will be able to make back its reported $55 million budget with the Summer blockbuster season poised to start in May.
Amazon MGM Studio's head of theatrical distribution Kevin Wilson did not seem overly concerned about what the final box office for Challengers may look like, though. He pointed to Amazon's scale and ability to eat the cost of a film like Challengers thanks to the tech giants various arms compared to dedicated film distributors like Warner Bros. or Universal.
“This movie is going to way over-perform when it gets on our platform,” Wilson told Variety. “Amazon’s financials are a little bit different in terms of comparing them to other studios.”
Second place saw a steep drop with the Christian-centric film Unsung Hero, which followed the formation of Christian rock group For King & Country, brought in roughly $7.7 million across the U.S. and Canada.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire continued to hold its ground in the top five with another $7.2 million to take the number three spot on the weekend at the domestic box office. This brings its domestic total to an estimated $181.7 million and its worldwide total to around $519 million, making it the third-highest grossing film in Legendary's MonsterVerse.
Rounding out the domestic box office's top five was A24's dystopian war film Civil War and Universal's latest vampire outing Abigail, which took the four and five spots, respectively. Civil War fell closely behind Godzilla x Kong with another $7 million while Abigail was a little further behind with $5.2 million.
The Summer Brings New Challengers
As for the immediate future, it appears all these films stand to take a beating starting with the first weekend of May and the release of the Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt-led action-comedy The Fall Guy. The film had already scored widely positive reviews from its premiere at SXSW 2024 in March and looks poised for a strong opening off the back of the strong early reception.
It doesn't stop there, though, as the rest of May looks to kick off the Summer movie season in a big way. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, IF, The Garfield Movie, and Furiosa are all set to hit theaters, likely eating away at the box office from each other and any remaining films from April.
Challengers is currently in theaters.
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