After July bought us the best month at the US box office since COVID hit, the last weekend has done quite the opposite providing one of the slowest weekends in cinema for quite some time.
Despite the arrival of three new movies, according to a report from Variety, the US box office only managed to generate $52.7 million over the weekend, with the leader being the latest thriller to drop, The Invitation.
The Invitation is a new thriller from director Jessica M. Thompson starring Nathalie Emmanuel in its leading role. Showing in more than 3,000 theaters, The Invitation garnered $7 million to lead the box office, but it isn’t so impressive when factored into the greater picture.
With this number, The Invitation has become the lowest earning first-place Box Office winner since May of 2021 when it was beaten by Spiral. Another thing to factor into this is that during May of 2021, theaters were still dealing with the grunt of the COVID pandemic and as such many moviegoers were steering clear.
The other two debut films this weekend were Three Thousand Years of Longing by director George Miller, and the John Boyega-led drama Breaking. Only Miller’s film was able to land in the top 10 this weekend at number seven earning $2.87 million while Breaking finished things at number 13 with $1.022 million.
Outside of The Invitation, these newcomers fell short of hits continuing to remain top of the charts such as Bullet Train, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, and cinema goliath Top Gun: Maverick.