The post-Labor Day box office cooled sharply as the total weekend reached an estimated $83.4M, down 44% from the same frame a year ago. Warner Bros and Alcon’s Practical Magic 2 led the chart with a $30M domestic start from 4,146 theaters.
A solid but not spectacular opening
The sequel landed at the lower end of projections, but the number sits close to several Sandra Bullock-led openings. The Lost City opened to $30.4M, The Proposal to $33.6M and The Blind Side to $34.1M. For a core female-skewing romantic drama sequel, that is a reasonable start rather than a breakout.
The production carries a net cost of $75M, financed 50/50 with Alcon. With international openings projected at $18M-$23M across 77 markets outside China, the global start is modest. Legs will matter more than opening-day share.
Premium large formats accounted for 35% of the weekend gross, with the strongest pockets in the South, South Central, Midwest and Mountain regions. Top markets included Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City.
Holdovers filled out the rest of the top slots. Spider-Man: Brand New Day added $8.4M for a $935.1M domestic total, leaving it just short of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $936.6M. Universal’s The Odyssey crossed $600M domestically after a $7.4M weekend. Among new specialty titles, Angel Studios’ Runner opened to $6.67M, NEON’s Hope took $3.3M, and Focus Features’ The Uprising stalled at $3.25M.
Who showed up – and what the diagnostics say
Women made up 78% of the opening-weekend crowd; 69% were over 25 and 36% over 45. That points to an appointment-viewing pattern: older female audiences often do not rush out on opening night, but can sustain a title across weekends.
- Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
- Postmark rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
- Definite recommend: 72%
- Overall CinemaScore: B+, ahead of the original’s B-
- Audience share under 25 female: 23%, up 10 points from Thursday to Saturday
Social reach before opening was 573.6M across X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, according to RelishMix. That was higher than Freakier Friday and Snow White; the trick is converting that reach into ticket sales beyond the first wave.
What it means for the business
The result says more about the season than about star power. The entire marketplace dropped from a year ago, when Conjuring Last Rights opened to $84M. Fall weekends are now competing with NFL and a slate of prestige titles that mostly failed to gain traction.
For distribution and marketing teams, the sequel’s exit metrics suggest a slower burn is possible. The challenge is that female-driven titles can be front-loaded, and a $30M start against a $75M net production cost still needs strong domestic legs and overseas support to move into profitable territory. The next two weekends will show whether the older female audience returns or whether the opening was the peak.
Source: Deadline
