In what may be a slight surprise, Free Guy has taken the top spot at this weeks box office. The 28.4 million dollar debut exceeded expectations as the film was tracking to gross in the mid-teens. One of the biggest victories for the film as it is an original story, rather than just another IP claiming the top spot. Director of Free Guy, Shawn Levy stated, “
This is the first non-IP, non-sequel that Disney has released in literal years. And not just because of the pandemic, but because of the culture of our industry, which more and more rarely bets, and bets big –they’ll bet small—but bets big on a new, original movie. That was the bet that (former 20th Century Studios Boss, now at Paramount) Emma Watts placed and that Disney doubled down on.”
Opening in second is Don’t Breathe 2 with $10.6 million. The horror sequel was tracking in the $8-10 million range so it lands pretty much where most were predicting. Outside of these two releases, the biggest surprise at the box office this weekend was The Suicide Squad which took a massive 70% drop in its second weekend to $7.7 million. The film debuted to a lower than expected $26.3 million last weekend so a big weekend two drop was in the cards but this fall is much larger than many expected.
