Box Office Roundup: 'Into The Spider-Verse' Swings Into First Place |

Each week on Atom Insider, we break down the box office numbers for all of the biggest films that opened in theaters. This week, it was all about splashy, visual stunners with a few awards contenders and one last film from a Hollywood legend.

This Week’s Top Earner – ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’

Sony’s animated superhero spinoff of the myriad Spider-Man franchises received universal acclaim from critics and an A+ CinemaScore from audiences. But this early critical success wasn’t just in reviews; it translated into equally impressive box office numbers for an animated movie.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse broke a record by accumulating $35.4 million in the U.S., making it the biggest December opening for an animated film ever (Illumination’s Sing held that record for just two years). Its global take is also looking good, as it adds $21 million from 44 international markets, bringing its worldwide total to over $56 million.

We can probably expect Into the Spider-Verse to have some legs in the weeks ahead thanks to great word-of-mouth and its stellar ratings, plus the film will open in even more countries pretty soon. That said, there are other blockbusters, including a highly-anticipated DC superhero film you may have heard about, that will compete for attention and possibly slow down the film’s momentum.

Second Place: ‘The Mule’

Clint Eastwood’s last two films, The 15:17 to Paris and Sully, didn’t quite live up to the financial success of American Sniper, the director’s biggest hit ever and the highest-grossing war film of all time. His newest film is The Mule, and its opening weekend take of over $17.2 million for Warner Bros. is a bit better than The 15:17 to Paris managed earlier this year. The Mule also made about half the opening box office of Sully from two years ago. It’s also worth noting, however, that The Mule opened in a crowded holiday season whereas the other three opened during traditionally slower times at the theater, so all things considered, it’s doing solidly well.

We won’t get a broader picture of the film’s international take until January, but for now, we can probably expect this one to be a modest earner for the rest of the month thanks to fairly positive audience ratings and a mixed-to-positive response from critics. That $50 million production budget, however, will be a steep climb at this point. But Eastwood has proven he has a track record of films carving out a box office take over time. Will The Mule do the same? It’s a definite possibility.

Stalling This Weekend: ‘Mortal Engines’

Universal’s big-budget adaptation of the post-apocalyptic “roving city” novel by Philip Reeve struggled to find an audience, earning just $7.5 million on Friday and Saturday in the U.S. The film has been playing in London since November 26, so Mortal Engines has already secured a total box office of over $42 million to date, but its reported budget is at least $100 million.

This means that Mortal Engines comes in fifth place this weekend for domestic box office behind animated movies The Grinch (also from Universal) and Ralph Breaks the Internet, both of which came out in November. This is the first feature-length film directed by Christian Rivers, who worked with director Peter Jackson on all three The Lord of the Rings movies, as well as the entire Hobbit franchise. Universal used Jackson’s pedigree in a lot of the marketing for this new film (which he produced and co-wrote with his partner, Fran Walsh), but it doesn’t look like this will be the next big franchise-starter for Universal, perhaps due to mostly negative reviews and a tepid audience reaction from fans of the book.

Rounding Up The Rest Of The Box Office

Fox put out Once Upon a Deadpool this past weekend, a PG-13 edit of Deadpool 2 with some extra holiday-themed scenes featuring Fred Savage. It only made about $2.6 million domestically and $1 million overseas, so it’s looking like teens were already checking out the R-rated version with their parents, after all. Regardless, it’s all for a good cause as part of the proceeds went straight to the F*ck Cancer nonprofit organization, so even a few million dollars is great news for do-gooding.

Internationally, Aquaman has been cleaning up for Warners Bros. The film doesn’t officially open in the U.S. until next week, but it’s already made over $261 million globally, thanks in large part to an impressive showing in China and an advanced screening date, courtesy of yours truly and Amazon, that hauled in a few million. In fact, the Thursday night advanced screening for Aquaman was so successful that it technically places tenth on the list for this past weekend’s box office take. Not too shabby for a single night’s haul.

Lastly, If Beale Street Could Talk opened in four locations this past weekend and has earned $219,174 for Annapurna Pictures. Its per-theater average is quite high at $54,794, and for context, the second highest per-theater average this week is Mary Queen of Scots at $10,606. By comparison, Barry Jenkins’s last film, Moonlight, managed an average of over $100,000 just two years ago, also in only four theaters – and that was on the way to winning an Oscar for Best Picture. Will Beale Street be in the Oscars conversation, as well? It looks likely.

Check back with Atom Insider later this week as we preview all the new releases hitting theaters this Friday.

(Header image: Sony Pictures)