SATURDAY AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis After two weekends of overperforming, the September box office steps on the brakes, down -49% from last weekend to $76.9M. Sony/Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Universal/Monkeypaw’s Him are in a dead heat with $15M-$16M apiece— it’s still too early to call which one is No. 1.

Infinity Castle is playing exactly like an anime movie, completely front-loaded, with a second weekend drop around -78%, but as we told you, the highest grossing anime movie at the domestic box office is expected to cross $100M today.

Him won Friday with $6.47M and a C- CinemaScore, with Rotten Tomatoes ratings at 28% Critics, 58% audience score. Universal is calling the Jordan Peele produced movie at $15M in second currently, with an anticipated drop on Sunday due to NFL games of -37% for the football horror movie.

Here’s the sad news of the weekend, and everyone saw this coming: Sony’s play for female moviegoers with the Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell star-studded romance drama, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, is finding no road at the box office with $3.5M for the $50M studio acquisition in 6th place. The movie wasn’t developed or produced by Robbie’s LuckyChap. The Sony release is getting beaten by an animated movie and a horror film with a fresh face actor and 1990s comedian (Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans). Many sound the bell for original movies, which this project was, a hot title off The Black List, penned by Seth Reiss and directed by rising auteur Kogonada. However, what this shows is that star power alone attached to non-IP fare, can’t pull in moviegoers when its weighted down by poor critical reviews (this movie panned at 38% with great complaints over its pace), and not-so-hot audience scores with a 44% definite recommend and 2 1/2 stars on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak as well as a B- CinemaScore. Oy.

That said, I understand that the stars and everyone involved had a beautiful experience making the film, in the end the movie didn’t mirror what the script was.

By comparison, the specialty adult summer play, A24’s Materialists, with Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, looks like a blockbuster with an $11.3M domestic opening (and now $100M+ global gross for the net $20M movie). But that had better views at 79% certified fresh. Interestingly enough, Materialists and Big Bold Journey have the same audience exits of B- and mid 60% RT popcorn score.

To that point, some tell me that perhaps, Big Bold Beautiful Journey should have been positioned as a specialty play given its patina, versus a commercial mainstream romance movie. Luckily, the movie isn’t the lowest opening or wide break for either Robbie or Farrell. For Robbie, the movie is under the starts of such misfires Babylon ($3.6M) and Amsterdam ($6.4M) and for Farrell it’s under Seven Psychopaths ($4.2M opening) and above Voyagers ($1.4M).

Despite having a social media reach according to RelishMix at 266 million across TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube, which is 57% ahead of other romance movies (but 21% behind the Sony-Wayfarer title It Ends With Us which hit over 377 million on social), there’s a bad stink on Big Bold Beautiful Journey with the analytics corp noticing mixed-to-negative comments.

Reports RelishMix, “Some viewers smell sentimentality and algorithmic gloss. Skeptics tag the vibe as trailer-deep with lines like ‘This feels like a trailer for a fake movie’ and point to tonal saccharine with ‘Touchy feely picture… emotional diabetes.’ Comparisons skew cautionary with Black Mirror and even AI commercial jokes, plus a few drive-by age and body takes dragging the cast. Receipts land with ‘What Black Mirror episode is this?’ and ‘Looks like an AI generated commercial.’”

Him is 51%/49% men-to-women with a low definite recommend of 41%, but it’s horror, which gives it more mojo than Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Diversity demos are 36% Black, 34% Caucasian, 20% Latino and Hispanic and 6% Asian American. Men over 25 rep 33% of ticket buyers with women over 25 at 31%, men under 25 at 19% and women under 25 at 17% for the R-rated title. PLFs, which are split with Demon Slayer, are driving 37% of the weekend. An even play throughout the country for Him with notable touchdowns in the West, South Central, South and East after a slew of spots since August on football. Best gross in the nation so far comes from AMC Universal’s Citywalk Hollywood (CA) with close to $32K.

Big Bold Beautiful Journey saw 59% women with 44% women over 25 (who gave the movie its best grades at 71% on PostTrak). It looks like some guys got pulled into this movie as +1s with the second most-attending demo being men over 25 at 32%. This is further underscored by the stats that close to 40% came with a spouse/partner/boyfriend or girlfriend. Diversity demos are 58% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 8% Asian American and 5% Black. A handful of PLFs which only represent 12% of the weekend, I understand with West, Midwest and Mountain regions being where the bulk of the business is. AMC Grove is the top grossing venue so far this weekend with just under $12K.

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FRIDAY AM: Universal and Monkeypaw’s football horror movie Him did $2 million from previews that began at 2 p.m. Thursday. That number is just above Lionsgate’s preview take on Stephen King’s The Long Walk ($1.3M) a week ago, and Blumhouse’s Speak No Evil ($1.3M) a year ago. Him, which stars Marlon Wayans, Julia Fox and Tyriq Withers, is expected to open in the mid-teen millions this weekend; The Long Walk opened to $11.7M, while Speak No Evil did $11.4M in its first frame.

Critics aren’t sticking around in the stands for Him at 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, and last night’s audience wasn’t impressed at 59%. Yikes. We’ll see where this goes. Him was made for a net $27M.

Sony/Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is expected to stand tall in its second weekend with a take between $14M-$21M. The movie will share Imax screens with Him but hold onto PLFs. Pic’s first week ends at $87.4M after a $2.6M Thursday, down 26%. It’s already the highest-grossing anime movie of all time at the domestic box office, having surpassed 1999’s Pokemon from Warner Bros ($85.7M). Next, Demon Slayer will conquer securing $100M stateside, again a first for anime movie in the U.S. and Canada.

Columbia Pictures’ Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie romance A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, is not huge in its previews with $400,000 from Thursday early shows that began at 4 p.m. at 2737 locations. Critics had no patience for this one at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. No audience score. Sony sees the opening at $10M, others see it much lower.

Top five for the week:

1.) Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (Sony) 3,315 theaters, Thur $2.6M (-29% from Wed), Week $87.4M/Wk 1

2.) Conjuring: Last Rites (NL) 3,802 theaters, Thurs $1.56M (-8%), Week $33.2M (-68%), Total $138.2M/Wk 2

3.) Downton Abbey: Grand Finale (Foc) 3,694 theaters, Thurs $1.38M (-16%), Week $25.3M/Wk 1

4.) Long Walk (LG) 2,845 theaters, Thurs $890K (-17%), Week $16.4M, Wk 1

5.) Toy Story 30th anniversary reissue (Dis) 2,375 theaters, Thurs $174K (-33%), Wk $4.4M, Lifetime cume $227.6M/Wk 1