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In the North American film market this weekend, it was no surprise that the summer animated blockbuster Despicable Me 4 led the box office charts. In the end, the film took in $44.65 million at the weekend box office, and the current total North American box office has risen to $211 million, and the global box office has reached $437 million, making the entire Despicable Me series the first animated film series in film history to break the $5 billion box office ceiling.

Despicable Me 4 Poster

On the other hand, the global box office revenue of "Inside Out 2" continues to rise, and has now reached 1.36 billion US dollars. It is still the only film released in 2024 to exceed the 1 billion US dollar mark. Judging from the excellent results of the above two films, when we take stock of the box office trends at the end of 2024, animated films will definitely become a keyword that cannot be avoided.

Inside Out 2 poster

As for new films, the most anticipated highlight was the comedy Fly Me To The Moon, directed by Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon) and co-starring Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum and Woody Harrelson, which was distributed by Sony Pictures. The film involves the enduring conspiracy theory hot topic of "Apollo moon landing fraud", and the main focus is actually the emotional interaction between the male and female protagonists. After the film was released in 3,356 theaters, it only earned $10 million in the opening box office, ranking fifth on the weekend box office list. This also proves once again that this kind of traditional routine love movie for adult audiences is becoming increasingly difficult for audiences to pay for.

Poster of "Moon Landing"

The production cost of "Moon Landing" is said to be over $100 million. Judging from the opening performance, it is very difficult to make back the investment. However, the victim this time is Apple Original Films, which has never seemed to care much about economic benefits. The films they invested in before, such as "Killers of the Flower Moon", "Napoleon", and "Argyle", basically did not make any money. To be honest, they were all losing money. But what they care about is the brand effect, to increase the attractiveness of the streaming platform Apple TV+, and to attract big-name creators such as Scorsese and Ridley Scott and Hollywood A-list stars such as Scarlett Johansson to cooperate with them.

The film that really performed well last weekend was another low-budget new film, the horror thriller Longlegs from Neon Pictures. "Workaholic" Nicolas Cage plays a serial killer in the film, and Maika Monroe, a horror film professional who has previously starred in "It Follows" and "The Watcher," plays the FBI agent who tracks him down. The film currently has an 86% freshness rating on the film review collection website Rotten Tomatoes, and has been highly recognized by the media. After being released in 2,510 theaters, Longlegs earned $22.6 million in the opening box office, far exceeding expectations.

Poster of "Long Legs"

Earlier this year, Neon Pictures released a horror film about nuns, "The Immaculate Sister," starring Sidney Sweeney. At the time, it opened with $5.36 million in 2,354 theaters, setting a record for the best opening in the history of Neon Pictures. In the end, "The Immaculate Sister" earned a total of $15.6 million in North American box office, which does not seem amazing at first glance. However, including overseas box office, this low-cost film with a production cost of only $9 million earned a total of $27.2 million, which is a good result. The film was bought by Neon Pictures from the producer Black Bear Pictures for about $10 million. Neon Pictures did not invest much in its publicity and promotion expenses, so after the global box office of $27.2 million is divided, it will definitely not lose money.

This time, Neon Pictures was only responsible for the North American distribution of "The Long Legs". The acquisition cost was said to be only a few million US dollars, and including the publicity and distribution costs, it was at most 10 million US dollars. Now, the box office after three days of release is enough to recover the cost, and further refreshed the opening box office record of Neon Pictures.

Horizon poster

As for old films, it is worth mentioning Kevin Costner's masterpiece "Horizon". It has been two weeks since the film was released, but the North American box office is only 27 million US dollars. Compared with the shooting cost of 50 million US dollars, Costner, who paid for it out of his own pocket, is bound to lose a lot of money. Last week, the market received new news that the second film in the same series, which was originally scheduled to be released on August 16, has been officially withdrawn. It is reported that this is a difficult decision made after the distributor New Line Cinema and Costner jointly agreed. The purpose is said to be to leave more time for the first film so that it can accumulate more audiences through online on-demand starting on July 16, so as to accumulate popularity for the release of the second film.

According to the original plan, if "Horizon 2" is released on August 16, it will compete with the sci-fi blockbuster "Alien: Revenge" produced by 20th Century Fox. Judging from the current situation, the box office performance may be even worse than the first "Horizon".