Box Office: ‘TMNT,’ ‘Meg 2’ Racing Against ‘Oppenheimer’ for Second as ‘Barbie’ Reign Continues

The summer box office season may have reached the dog days of August, but it’s hardly looked stronger over the past few months. Though the openings of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and “Meg 2: The Trench” won’t be able to take down “Barbie” as the top performer in North America, both new releases are boosting theaters to a weekend with four different features grossing north of $25 million.

Paramount Pictures’ “Mutant Mayhem” added $9.3 million from 3,858 locations on Friday, tracking neck-and-neck with “Oppenheimer” for second place on domestic charts. The animated feature, produced by Nickelodeon Movies and Point Grey Productions, opened with Tuesday evening preview screenings and is now tracking for a $42 million five-day debut — squarely within the projections of $35 million to $45 million heading into the weekend.

That’s not shabby for the “TMNT” entry, which cost only $70 million to produce — an especially economical figure for an animated studio release. Paramount has managed to capitalize on strong buzz as both an effective nostalgia play and a modern spin on the ’80s property. The 90% approval rating from top critics on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes brought momentum into the weekend, and the glowing “A” grade through research firm Cinema Score shows early audiences are digging the latest adventures of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo. As the summer season winds down, “Mutant Mayhem” should find some steady play.

The “TMNT” entry features a celebrity voice cast including Jackie Chan, Ayo Edebiri, Post Malone, Paul Rudd, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Ice Cube and Seth Rogen, plus a group of young stars — Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon — voicing the Turtle Brothers, emphasizing the first “T” of “TMNT.” Jeff Rowe directs.

Meanwhile, “Meg 2: The Trench” chowed down on $12 million from 3,503 theaters on its opening day, a figure that includes $3.2 million in Thursday previews. The hungry, hungry sequel from Warner Bros. is still tracking for an opening with a ceiling of $30 million. That’s a chunk behind the 2018 original, which saw Jason Statham lead a group of scientists against two gigantic sharks. “The Meg” earned $45 million in its domestic opening and finished with $145 million in North America and $530 million worldwide.

As its predecessor did, “The Trench,” which sees Jason Statham lead a group of scientists against even more gigantic sharks, will look to international territories as its main course to replenish a $129 million production budget. Notably, the sequel adds Wu Jing to its cast — a colossal star in China who has anchored local mega-hits such as “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” “Wolf Warrior” and “The Wandering Earth.” In fact, though Wu’s character perished in the first “Wandering Earth” entry, its follow-up was conceived as a prequel so that the actor could return to star.

Not that the first “Meg” was an awards season heavyweight, but “The Trench” hasn’t performed well in reviews (a 33% from top critics on Rotten Tomatoes). Audiences also seem to be cooler on the sequel, turning in a “B” grade on Cinema Score, down from the “B+” earned by the first entry. Consensus opinion may be that the franchise has jumped the… well… but a spectacular reception would’ve marked a bit of a marketing misdirect, to put it frankly.

“Meg 2: The Trench” sees Statham and Wu team up with Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyler Samuels, Cliff Curtis and Sienna Guillory to take down not one, not two, but three prehistoric sharks, along with a bunch of other sea creatures. Beguilingly, the feature is based on a novel, “The Trench” by Steve Alten, and helmed by “Kill List” and “High-Rise” director Ben Wheatley, making the jump to big-budget filmmaking.

Neither sharks nor turtles can take down “Barbie” though, which added $17 million on Friday, down only 41% from last weekend. The Warner Bros. release has been a dominant force since scoring the biggest opening of the year and there aren’t really any signs of stopping. The hot-pink comedy will likely surpass $1 billion in global ticket sales within the next day or two.

Still the hottest ticket in the nation, “Barbie” should surge beyond a $450 million domestic gross through Sunday, placing it hot on the heels of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($574 million) to become the highest-earning North American release of the year.

It’ll be a close call for “Oppenheimer,” which may finally need to surrender second place on domestic charts to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” or “Meg 2: The Trench.” Then again, it may not. The Christopher Nolan feature is projecting $28.7 million for the weekend, which would be down an impressively slim 39% from its previous outing.

The sweeping biopic has surpassed $200 million in North America and looks to keep playing through August, already having extended its tenure in Imax auditoriums. It’s a formidable performance for such a grim chatterbox of a film, which ranks among Nolan’s top four domestic grossers ever after just two weeks of release.

The floor is collapsing under Disney’s “Haunted Mansion,” which earned $2.6 million on its second Friday, down a staggering 73% from its debut. The family-friendly funhouse feature should push beyond a $40 million domestic gross on Saturday — not exactly the desired return for a film with a $150 million production budget. With plenty of competition for audiences’ attention, “Haunted Mansion” may be off to an early grave.

Notably, the unlikely summer hit “Sound of Freedom” continues to perform well in its sixth weekend of release. Competitors project the feature about child sex trafficking will drop only 39% this weekend, boosting its domestic haul to $164 million — enough to surpass “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” ($156 million) to become one of the top 10 highest-grossing North American releases of the year.

The Angel Studios release has drawn a substantial amount of skepticism among box office watchers. After the credits roll on the thriller, star Jim Caviezel appears on screen to speak directly to audiences, saying that he believes “we can make ‘Sound of Freedom’ the ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ of 21st-century slavery” and presenting a QR code that directs viewers to the distributor’s unconventional “Pay It Forward” system, allowing users to donate money to Angel Studios so that it may purchase tickets for its own film and distribute them to those that request free admission. The company touts the initiative as a tool to raise awareness of its subject matter.

It’s unclear to what degree the program has buoyed the box office fortunes of “Sound of Freedom,” but religious and conservative media groups have rallied behind the feature and a superlative “A+” grade on Cinema Score indicates that its audience is certainly enthusiastic about it. And regardless, those “Pay It Forward” ticket sales are still putting money in the pocket of exhibitors — whether people show up or not.

By J. Kim Murphy

Photo: Everett Collection