Two animated movies will be fighting for the top box office spot on this final weekend of June. Disney/Pixar’s Elemental and Sony Picture Animation’s blockbuster Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse both have a good chance of landing at the No. 1 spot, with Friday estimates of $5.4 million each leading up to weekend totals in the $18 million range.
Although Elemental had one of the the lowest openings for a Pixar movie in recent years with $29.6 million, it’s expected to take in about $65 million for its first 10 days at the box office in 4,035 theaters, which is still $5 million higher than the 2020 release Onward. Meanwhile, Sony’s Across the Spider-Verse is expected to finish with a dazzling $315 million at 3,785 theaters nationwide this weekend. The film already hit the big $500 million mark worldwide on Wednesday.
Animation fans are also likely to check out Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which had a $1.1 million take from 1,400 theaters on Thursday night previews. Although the movie is live-action, Anderson is hugely admired by animation and art professionals because of his impeccable attention to beautiful camera shots and meticulously designed productions. The film expands to 1,675 locations in L.A. and New York City today. Last weekend, the movie had a healthy opening of $140,000 in select theaters.The movie has had a 74% rating on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
According to Deadline.com, the summer box office total from May 1 to June 19 is about $1.52 billion from 11 wide releases, which is 2.3% ahead of last summer, which counted $1.49 billion from six wide releases. However, the 2023 summer box office is still 11% less than pre-COVID 2019, which brought in $1.7 billion for the period of May 1-June 19 with 17 wide releases.
Sources: Deadline.com, Variety, Boxofficemojo.com
