Unbelievably, the ghost with the most got the better of the mighty Autobots and Decepticons. The weekend box office seemed like it would almost certainly belong to Chris Hemsworth’s new film Transformers One, but in a stunning September shocker, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice upsets director Josh Cooley’s animated adventure by a mere million dollars. According to the estimates, the Beetlejuice sequel will squeak its way into the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office with $26 million (per The Numbers).
Meanwhile, Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson and Brian Tyree Henry’s Transformers origin story will end up ranking at No. 2 with $25 million. Transformers One started off by winning the top spot at the box office on Thursday, September 19, during its preview screenings ($3.4 million) and again on Friday with $9.6 million, but everything changed on Saturday. In a stunning turn of events, moviegoers began flocking to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice rather than the new Transformers flick.
Michael Keaton’s spooky sequel won easily on Saturday, September 21, in its head-to-head competition with Transformers One, as Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ascended to No. 1 convincingly with $11.8 million. And on Sunday the trend continued as the ghost with the most edged out the Orion Pax (Optimus Prime) and D-16 (Megatron) origin story $7.5 million to $6.3 million.
Newcomers Don’t Have Enough Juice to Challenge for No. 1
Transformers One’s promising box office forecast predicted that Chris Hemsworth’s new film would make somewhere between $40 million and $50 million domestically (per Boxoffice Pro), but the animated origin story severely underperformed. And while Speak No Evil secured the No. 3 slot with $5.9 million, the rest of this weekend’s newcomers all failed to provide a viable challenge against No. 1 Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Among the other new films this weekend, Halle Berry’s horrific survival thriller, Never Let Go, did the best outside of Transformers One, and it checks in at No. 4 with $4.5 million. Demi Moore’s The Substance didn’t fare too badly either, but it was shut out of the Top 5 at No. 6 with $3.1 million, as Deadpool & Wolverine secured the No. 5 spot with an additional $3.9 million. And then there’s No. 9 Jung Kook: I Am Still, which is the last of the newbies to appear in the Top 10 ($1.4 million).
Sebastian Stan’s new film from A24, A Different Man, quietly debuts in limited release (4 cinemas). And while it doesn’t rank all that high in the overall box office, Stan’s collaboration with director Aaron Schimberg did boast the weekend’s best per-theater average ($14,032). Additionally, the documentary, Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field, which focuses on the famed Emmy award-winning costume designer (Sex and the City HBO series), also thrives in limited release (1 venue) with $10,254.
Lastly, Sashe Calle’s critically acclaimed In the Summers finally drops, albeit only in two theaters. Calle, who is best known for portraying Supergirl, aka Kara, in The Flash (2023), is charming the critics. And, at the time of this writing, In the Summers boasts an impressive 90% Tomatometer rating against 40 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Up next: The Wild Robot drops on September 27, but director Chris Sanders’ animated adventure will have to take advantage of its premium IMAX screens quickly, because the following weekend (October 4) marks the beginning of Joker: Folie à Deux’s highly anticipated theatrical run. And the Joker (2019) sequel is eyeing a massive box office opening weekend.