Box office: A Quiet Place: Day One ends an already strong month on a strong note

Between the apocalyptic monster-movie spin-off and Inside Out 2, this weekend marked the first time since 'Barbenheimer' that two films grossed over $50 million at the same time.

Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) and Frodo the cat in A Quiet Place: Day One.

For the first time since ‘Barbenheimer’, there were two—not one, but two!—movies that grossed over $50 million in a single weekend this week.

Inside Out 2 reigned supreme in its third week with an estimated $57.4 million, raising its North American total to a staggering $469.3 million, and continuing to pace ahead of where Barbie was at this point in its release last summer. The Pixar sequel also became the first movie of 2024 to join the billion-dollar club worldwide.

But also noteworthy this week was A Quiet Place: Day One, an apocalyptic monster-movie spin-off, featuring almost none of the actors from the earlier Quiet Place films,¹ that scored a franchise-best North American opening of $53 million.

The strong performance of both films—and the ongoing success of fellow June release Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which grossed an extra $10.3 million and raised its domestic cume to $165.3 million after four weeks—has given theatres hope that the rest of the summer might not be all that bad, despite a shaky start in May.

The success of these films does complicate the narrative around last year’s success stories somewhat, though. Last year, everyone was talking about the death of franchises and the audience’s demand for “original” films like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Sound of Freedom. This year, it is not lost on anyone that all the biggest hits—from Dune: Part Two to Godzilla x Kong, etc.—have been sequels and spin-offs.

One lesson has stuck, at least: smaller budgets are safer bets. While Inside Out 2 cost a typical-for-Pixar $200 million, other recent hits have had more modest price tags, e.g. Bad Boys: Ride or Die reportedly cost only $100 million, and A Quiet Place: Day One cost a mere $67 million. The path to profitability has been much quicker for those films than it has for films like The Fall Guy ($125mil budget, $91mil domestic gross) or Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ($168mil budget, $67mil domestic gross).

One last note before we get to the top ten: Now that the year is half-over, here’s a quick rundown of how the past six months compare to the first half of last year when it comes to the number of films that reached certain box-office milestones:

• Eight films so far this year have grossed over $100 million, two have grossed over $200 million, and only one—Inside Out 2—has grossed over $300 million or $400 million.²

  • A Quiet Place: Day One will presumably reach $100 million soon, too.

• At this time last year, ten films had grossed $100 million, five films had grossed over $200 million, three films had grossed over $300 million, and only one—The Super Mario Bros. Movie—had grossed over $400 million or $500 million.³

  • The Flash, Elemental, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny all came out in June and eventually reached $100 million, too.

• So, $100mil films are down from 10 to 8, $200mil films are down 5 to 2, $300mil films are down 3 to 1, and $400mil films are holding steady at 1.

  • And the June releases that eventually reached $100mil are down 3 to 1.⁴

And now, a few more stats and facts re: this week’s top ten, title by title: