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After a back and forth battle over the weekend, the final box office numbers are saying Elvis has supplanted Top Gun: Maverick as the #1 film on the domestic charts. The $31 million debut of Elvis was just enough to sneak past the $30.5 million that Maverick made in its fifth weekend of release. The initial Sunday estimates had both films earning $30.5 million, but the actual tally for Elvis was determined Monday to be just over the $31 million mark. Elvis is the second-biggest opening of director Baz Luhrmann‘s career, falling behind the $50 million The Great Gatsby grossed upon its 2013 premiere.
It’s an impressive debut for Elvis, given the crowded summer marketplace, especially when considering the film was playing in less theaters than both Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion. Dominion was being shown in more than 4,200 theaters, while Maverick played in nearly 4,000, leaving Elvis just 3,900 theaters across the country. Still, the biopic was able to hold off two of the biggest blockbusters of the summer, and the reception to Elvis may bode well for its staying power. The film received an “A-” CinemaScore and is sitting at a favorable 78% on Rotten Tomatoes. The two-and-a-half-hour runtime of Elvis could limit its earning potential, but it’s off to a great start as the summer movie season continues to roll on.
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Paramount Pictures
Looking at the rest of the top five, Top Gun: Maverick actually jumped back up to the #2 spot after falling to third place last weekend. Maverick continues to hold extremely well, falling just 32% to push its total domestic gross to more than $520 million. It’s also the first film of the year to cross the $1 billion mark worldwide, joining Spider-Man: No Way Home as the only billion-dollar grossers since the pandemic. The Top Gun sequel has been a phenomenon ever since its release, and is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
One film that may be slowing down is Jurassic World: Dominion, which fell behind Elvis and Top Gun to finish in third place with $26 million. Dominion has dropped more than 50% in each of the past two weekends and stands with a domestic total just over $300 million. The third film in the Jurassic World series is starting to lag behind its predecessors and is in danger of falling short of the $417 million grossed by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018. At the moment, Dominion has only outpaced Jurassic Park III and The Lost World: Jurassic Park when looking at the franchise as a whole. Audience fatigue seems to have set in for Jurassic Park, which means it may be time to put the dinosaurs to sleep for a little while.
Rounding out the top five, Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone debuted at #4 with a $23 million opening weekend, and Lightyear came in fifth place at $17 million. With four of the top five films of the weekend grossing more than $20 million, the box office is continuing to show strong signs of recovery following the effects of the pandemic. Heading into July, new releases such as Minion: The Rise of Gru, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Nope should continue the strong momentum that’s been building over the last few weeks.
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