‘A Working Man’ Subdues ‘Snow White’ With $15 Million Box Office Opening

Disney’s “Snow White” is sinking fast at the box office, so much so that Amazon MGM’s “A Working Man” has taken No. 1 from it this weekend with a $15.2 million opening from 3,262 theaters compared to a $14.2 million second weekend for the Rachel Zegler-starring remake.

Heading into the weekend, “Snow White” was projected for a second weekend of $16-18 million, with some optimistic projections topping out at $20 million. “A Working Man” was projected for $10-12 million.

Instead, “A Working Man” has nearly matched the $16 million opening of star Jason Statham’s last film, “The Beekeeper” in January 2024. As expected, the film skewed 60% male and, while getting mixed critical reviews, has earned mostly positive reception from audiences with a B on CinemaScore and an 84% overall positive rating on PostTrak.

The film will now try to match the $66.2 million domestic/$162.6 million global total of “The Beekeeper” against its reported $40 million budget produced by Black Bear. Amazon MGM acquired the movie in the U.S. and select overseas territories, with Warner Bros. handling the rest of its international release.

“Snow White,” meanwhile, is falling a stiff 66% from its already poor $42 million opening weekend, and now has a two-weekend total of $66.8 million domestic and $143.1 million worldwide. While it is still getting some play from female and family audiences and could continue to do so against Warner Bros.’ more boy-skewing “A Minecraft Movie” next week, it is not getting the four-quadrant, global play that a $250 million-plus remake needs to be theatrically profitable.

New releases fill out the rest of the top 5, though they are not lifting the box office out of the slump it has been mired in for weeks. Overall totals for the weekend stand at an estimated $80 million, down 42% year-over-year. With March nearly over, first quarter domestic totals are expected to stand at $1.4 billion, down 12% from last year and little less than half the all-time Q1 record of $2.9 billion in 2017.

Taking third this weekend is Fathom’s “The Chosen: Last Supper,” which continues the theatrical release of episodes from the hit indie Christian series. Recounting the Gospel stories of Jesus’ return to Jerusalem and final days before his crucifixion, these first two episodes of season 5 of “The Chosen” have earned a solid $11.4 million from 2,478 locations.

With the remaining six episodes to screen over the next two weeks as Easter approaches, season 5 is well on pace to surpass the $31.5 million grossed by last year’s season of “The Chosen.”

In fourth is Universal/Blumhouse’s “The Woman in the Yard” with $9.45 million from 2,842 locations. With a $12 million budget, this Jaume Collet-Serra directed, Danielle Deadwyler starring horror film should turn a modest theatrical profit, but it is not showing signs of much staying power as critics and audiences are rejecting it with a C- on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 41% critics and 45% audience.

The film continues a slump for Blumhouse that goes back to the start of 2024, with films like “Night Swim,” “Imaginary,” “Speak No Evil” and most recently “Wolf Man” failing to top $50 million domestic or $100 million worldwide after films like “The Black Phone,” “M3GAN,” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” all easily cleared those marks in 2022 and 2023. All three of those films have sequels coming up from Blumhouse later in the year.

Completing the top 5 is A24’s “Death of a Unicorn” with a $5.8 million opening weekend from 3,050 theaters. With a reported $15 million budget that was likely recouped at least in part by overseas distribution sales, the break-even point should be cleared by this satirical horror comedy starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega and Will Poulter.

But legging out will be a challenge, as hopes A24 may have had of a big word-of-mouth boost from a SXSW premiere were dashed with a tepid critics RT score of 55%. We will see in the coming weeks if somewhat better reception from audiences helps with a B- on CinemaScore and a 72% RT score.

Farther down the charts, GKIDS’ 4K Imax re-release of Studio Ghibli’s classic “Princess Mononoke” has earned $4.1 million from 347 premium screens, giving it a per theater average of approximately $11,800. It is Imax’s best U.S. weekend ever for a non-English title.

On the specialty front, Focus Features’ British comedy “The Ballad of Wallis Island” earned $92,000 from its four-screen platform release in Los Angeles and New York for an average of $23,000. Starring Tom Basden, Carey Mulligan and co-writer Tim Key, the film has a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

In wider release is Sony Pictures Classics’ “The Penguin Lessons,” which earned $1.2 million from 1,017 screens. Starring Steve Coogan in a true story about a teacher in 1970s Argentina who gets his students engaged with the unexpected help of a penguin has an 81% RT score.

Finally, one of the biggest bombs of the year, Warner Bros.’ “Alto Knights,” has fallen 68% to just $1 million in its second weekend, leaving the Robert De Niro-starring mobster film with a mere $5.4 million after ten days in theaters.

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