This year’s National Cinema Day this past Suner pulled in a reported 8.5 million admissions in the U.S. alone, with an estimated haul of around $34 million.
That’s up on last year’s first event, which drew 8.1 million admissions, though this year’s one was buoyed by a much more crowded marketplace with plenty of content on offer. Added to that, all tickets were up to $4 vs. last year’s $3.
The four top-place films saw surges in Sunday-to-Sunday box office with “Barbie” up 6% with $5.7 million, “Blue Beetle” up 32% with $5.45 million, “Gran Turismo” up 14% with $4.7 million, and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” up 37% with $3.3 million.
Even so, there wasn’t a late surge for “Barbie” as Warners had hoped – they were projecting 1.94 million admissions to the film for the day, in actuality it was 1.42 million. To date, “Barbie” has sold over 50 million sold during her domestic run.
Both “Barbie” and “Gran Turismo,” the latter of which is receiving stellar audience exit poll scores with an A CinemaScore and a 5/5 rating on PostTrak, are arguing about who won the weekend.
Warners claims “Barbie” won the weekend with $15.1 million from Friday-Sunday. Sony is claiming victory “Gran Turismo” with $17.4 million – but that figure includes the $3.9 million the film generated in two prior weekends of special pre-show screenings.
Warners doesn’t like those other numbers being folded into the film’s opening total, even as they did something similar themselves last month with “Oppenheimer”.
