Hot off the resounding success of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Sony Pictures had another Tom Holland movie clinch first place at the domestic box office: "Uncharted" exceeded early expectations by launching at $44.2 million last weekend, while Jon Watts' "Spider-Man" surpassed James Cameron's "Avatar" as the third-highest grossing domestic release of all time.
The unpredictability of pandemic-era audiences made "Uncharted" a bit of a wild card, and the poor reviews from critics had some going into the weekend with cautious optimism. The Ruben Fleischer-directed film, based on a PlayStation game, opened on 4,275 screens.
"This result is yet another extraordinary testament to the appetite for the theatrical experience that Sony Pictures bet on," said Josh Greenstein, the president of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer and based on the video game series of the same name, "Uncharted" stars Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali and Tati Gabrielle as treasure hunters racing to find hidden riches from the Magellan expedition. The action flick received a dismal 39% positive rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, while an audience assessment from CinemaScore has yet to be posted.
"Tom Holland is a megastar regardless of whether he's Peter Parker or Nathan Drake," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "For many of the actors who have portrayed superheroes, breaking out of that role and having big box office success outside of that is a tough go."
Coming in at No. 2 was Channing Tatum's "Dog," which he co-directed (with his longtime producing partner Reid Carolin) and stars in. It opened on 3,677 screens last weekend. United Artists says it earned $15.1 million for the weekend. Tatum plays an Army ranger tasked with driving a traumatized military dog from Oregon to Arizona for her handler's funeral in the film, which was received well by critics and audiences. Plus, it only cost around $15 million to make.
The PostTrak survey shows that the opening weekend audience for "Dog" was 53% over age 35 and 54% was female.
"To have two movies do really solid business makes it feel like 2019 all over again," Dergarabedian said.
Rounding out the weekend's top five for U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore: Marvel's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which added $7.2 million in its 10th weekend for a domestic cumulative of $770.1 million; 20th Century Studios' "Death on the Nile," which grossed $6.3 million in its second weekend for a domestic cumulative of $25 million; and Paramount Pictures' "Jackass Forever," which collected $5.2 million in its third weekend for a domestic cumulative of $46.8 million.
According to Dergarabedian, the momentum from last weekend should be the "perfect lead-up" to the already highly anticipated release of Warner Bros. "The Batman" on March 4.
"Think about all the people in the movie theater [last] weekend being exposed to trailers," Dergarabedian said. "This is great news for 'The Batman.'"
Opening in wide release this weekend is Open Road Films' "Studio 666," a horror-comedy musical starring the Foo Fighters along with Jenna Ortega, Whitney Cummings, Will Forte and Jeff Garlin.