Cars went fast this weekend, but did they go fast enough for the investors in Brad Pitt and Jerry Bruckheimer’s expensive Formula One film? By racing movie standards, the grosses are good. Propped up next to the budget, less so. Especially if audiences begin to abandon it in favor of dinosaurs and supermen. Coming in well behind the checkered flag was the A.I. creation moviegoers actually embraced in theaters a few years ago.
King of the Crop: F1 Dominates with Biggest Opening for Live-Action Racing Movie
After beginning its filming in 2023, F1: The Movie finally arrived in theaters this weekend. Apple bid successfully for the project back in 2022 for a reported $130+ million package deal with Warner Bros., acquiring it for theatrical a couple years later. Final reported budget is clocking in around $200 million while there has been chatter that it could be as high as $300 million. Even at the lower number, how is the feeling around a $55.6 million start?
There have certainly been much worse starts for a highly-budgeted “event” film. Apple certainly remembers Argylle last year ($17.4 million opening), even with the disputes over its final price tag. It didn’t exactly take much to be declared the biggest opening for an Apple Original Film. Pixar’s worst opening in their history last week still would have been the second best weekend for Apple going into this weekend after Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon ($23.2 million). Plus, among the roughly 108 films with a budget at least as high as F1, there are at least 69 and maybe as many as 76 films (depending on final tallies Monday) that had a better opening.
Just to provide a little optimism for Joseph Kosinski’s film, there have been movies on that list that opened to less and still made it to $200 million domestic. Superman Returns just happens to be the only summer release to pull that off. F1 is Pitt’s second-biggest opening behind World War Z’s $66.4 million, and hey, F1 can now claim to have had the best opening for a live-action film centered around car racing. Naturally Pixar’s first two Cars films bested F1 even as it bested Cars 3’s $53.6 million. But take a seat, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, because your $47 million just got bested by Brad Pitt. Yes, a Will Ferrell comedy just happened to have the best opening ever for the sport of car racing. But F1 also came out ahead of these other films that represented the activity in one form or another:
The Fast and the Furious ($40.0 million), Ford v Ferrari ($31.4 million), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift ($23.9 million), Turbo ($21.3 million), Speed Racer ($18.5 million), Need for Speed ($17.8 million), Gran Turismo ($17.4 million), Days of Thunder ($15.4 million), Herbie: Fully Loaded ($12.7 million), Death Race ($12.6 million), Driven ($12.1 million), The Cannonball Run ($11.7 million), Rush ($10.0 million), Cannonball Run II ($8.3 million), Stroker Ace ($4.6 million), Redline ($3.96 million), Ferrari ($3.92 million), Six Pack ($1.9 million), Race the Sun ($1.1 million).
For those that like to play the inflation game, The Cannonball Run would be equal to a $41 million opening today, and Days of Thunder a cool $37.8 million. Only the top two films on that list, along with Ricky Bobby and the Pixar films, grossed over $100 million. Talladega Nights is still first among the live-action grouping with a $148.2 million finish. There is no guarantee that Pitt’s Sonny Hayes will be able to beat Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby twice.
In other words, F1 is counting on the serious international appeal of Formula One racing and Brad Pitt to steer itself to victory. Half-a-billion could do it if the budget numbers are accurate on the low end. But only twice has Pitt made it past $300 million as the headliner with international sales for Troy and World War Z. (Mr. & Mrs. Smith was close with $291 million). The ensemble of Ocean’s Eleven was good for $267 million in 2001. Not even with DiCaprio and Tarantino alongside him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (nor the Ocean’s sequels) was $250 million reached, and it is going to take at least that number to get anywhere close.
Among films with a $200+ million budget, there have only been nine to open under $60 million and gross $500+ million globally: No Time To Die, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Men In Black 3, King Kong (2005), Tangled, Transformers: The Last Knight, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Titanic. While five of those films did open to over $50 million, with the exception of the latter (despite the name recognition and history), there isn’t an original film in the bunch, and again, only three of them were summertime releases. Apple and Warner Bros. are now hoping that Formula One has the same awareness as the Titanic.
From that list above, the four highest international sales rank with the animated titles. The top live-action release was Need for Speed, a video game adaptation that made over 3.5 times its domestic total with $159.7 million overseas. Ford v Ferrari was the only other one to make it over $100 million. F1 is going to at least join (and top) the live-action list as it speeds out of the gate with $88 million for $144 million worldwide, but unlike Sonny Hayes, there is no cheating a path to victory if this begins to fall back in the wake of a couple monster summer releases on the horizon. It just may need a Sinners-type revival to keep from ultimately becoming a disappointment unless racing fans of the world unite.
Tales of the top 10: M3Gan 2.0 Crashes, Lilo & Stitch is $8 Million Away from Becoming the Biggest Movie of 2025
Down to second place is two-time box office winner How To Train Your Dragon. If its $19.4 million estimate holds, it will have gotten to $200 million in 17 days. If not, it will do it in 18, as it finished the weekend with $199.6 million. It is about $9 million ahead of where Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was when it finished with $18 million in its third weekend. Even if audiences trade dragons for dinosaurs, HTTYD is likely still on a path for $250-260 million domestic. Another $45 million internationally this weekend gives the film $454 million globally as the Universal hit heads to become the fourth U.S. release of the year to hit half a billion.
Pixar’s disappointing numbers for Elio don’t look much better this week. It made $10.7 million in its second weekend. Onward fell 72.9% in its second weekend to $10.6 million, but that was just days after Tom Hanks announced he got COVID and the NBA shut down, and just days before everything else shut down. Prior to that, it was The Good Dinosaur with the lowest second weekend ever for a Pixar release with $15.3 million. Elio is now at $42.2 million after 10 days. Just by general animated standards, that puts the film behind Happy Feet Two ($43.755 million), Open Season ($43.754 million), Ice Age: Collision Course ($42.59 million), and Smallfoot ($42.26 million). Those films grossed between $10.9-15.6 million in their second weekends and finished between $64-85 million. One interesting tidbit is that no summer film opening wide with less than a $5,700 per-theater average — as Elio did with $5,558 — has made it to $100 million. The films that actually did were all released in December during the holidays. That would certainly be a fresh new record for Pixar, though it appears highly unlikely. Elio has made just $72.3 million globally to date.
Fourth place goes to M3GAN 2.0, opening with $10.2 million. That is a major disappointment after the original started with $30.4 million. Perhaps that’s the difference between getting a pleasant surprise in the doldrums of January versus trying to sell its sequel as a summer tentpole. Still, that may be about 81% less than F1’s start at only 12.5% of its budget. This is a pretty big bummer from Blumhouse and Universal, though, with only $17.2 million worldwide. Even if this is on the low end of the reported budget ($15-25 million), it’s going to have a hard time turning a profit.. The original film in 2023 grossed $91.1 million domestic and another $84.9 million overseas on just a $12 million budget — an incredible success. This was a bad call, not to mention the only streaming service the original can be found on right now is Starz.
28 Years Later took a big drop as expected this week (67.7%), down to $9.7 million. $50 million after 10 days of release is not too shabby for a series that had grossed less than $74 million domestic total between 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. The bigger budget has the film chasing a global total of around $150 million. Its local numbers are aligned with that of Annabelle Comes Home and The Chronicles of Riddick, which had $9.4+ million second weekends. Riddick took a 61.2% drop and finished with just $57.7 million. 28 Years is ahead of both of their paces, but next week will help determine its faith. Continuing big drops like Riddick would likely have it around $65 million. If it levels out like Annabelle, it could still be closer to $75-80 million. The $60 million budget may prevent the film from being a huge success but it is still very much in the cards. Its international tally is at $103 million. How any ambivalence from moviegoers towards the direction of the Later films might affect grosses for the January release of The Bone Temple may be of bigger concern.
Lilo & Stitch is at the $400 million milestone in 38 days if the estimates hold on its $6.9 million weekend. Otherwise it will be Monday. Although 29 films have hit it faster, this is still a huge victory for Disney. A Minecraft Movie was over $408 million by this point with a $7.6 million sixth go. Stitch is not catching it domestically, where it looks to land in the $410-420 million region, but globally the film has $946 million. It is going to get close to a billion, but it only needs to reach Minecraft’s $954+ million to declare itself the biggest U.S. release of 2025 for the time being.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning continues to climb with the hopes of possibly reaching $600 million globally. Another $4.1 million this weekend brings it to nearly $186 million domestic. Another $10 million across the pond brings its worldwide total to $562 million, getting close to outdoing Dead Reckoning’s $567.5 million total. The Final Reckoning will settle into being the fourth-highest grossing film of the series behind Fallout ($791.1 million), Ghost Protocol ($694.7 million), and Rogue Nation ($682.3 million). Even if the economics are not in favor of the budget of this last film, we’re still talking a $4.7+ billion franchise from 1996-2025 for Paramount, second only to the Transformers films making over $5.4 billion.
Rounding out the top 10, we have Celine Song’s Materialists making $2.9 million. That brings the A24 release over $30 million, just the eighth film in the company’s history to pass that, with the rom-dram looking to pass The Iron Claw’s $35 million to become their seventh-highest grossing domestic release ever. In ninth place is Ballerina with $2.1 million. The John Wick prequel-ish spin-off has now made $55.4 million domestic and just $106+ million globally, which is not great for the $90 million production. Hanging on for one more week in the top 10 is Karate Kid: Legends with a cool million. Its domestic gross of $51.5 million and $102 million worldwide is disappointing for Sony but hardly a disaster.
Beyond the Top 10: Sorry, Baby Scores Solid Average from Four Theaters
A24’s release of Eva Victor’s Sundance favorite, Sorry, Baby, made $86,000 in four theaters. That’s the 10th-best per-theater average of the year, knocking out the release of Universal Language if the estimate holds. The film will be going wider in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Neon’s release of last year’s Toronto fest People’s Choice Award, The Life of Chuck, has made just $5.6 million to date.
On the Vine: Jurassic World Rebirth Hopes for Big July 4th Returns
Jurassic World: Rebirth hits theaters this Wednesday to get a jump on the July 4th holiday. Every film in the Jurassic World continuation has grossed over $1 billion, contributing to what will become a $6 billion franchise by next weekend. Can this one bring it to $7 billion? Then, for those looking for a throwback and a refresher before its sequel hits in September, Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap will be in theaters for a limited time in a remastered 4K version starting on Saturday.
Full List of Box Office Results: June 27-29, 2025
- F1: The Movie – $55.6 million ($55.6 million total)
- How To Train Your Dragon – $19.4 million ($200.0 million total)
- Elio – $10.7 million ($42.2 million total)
- M3GAN 2.0 – $10.2 million ($10.2 million total)
- 28 Years Later – $9.7 million ($50.4 million total)
- Lilo & Stitch – $6.9 million ($400.0 million total)
- Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – $4.1 million ($185.9 million total)
- Materialists – $2.9 million ($30.4 million total)
- Ballerina – $2.1 million ($55.4 million total)
- Karate Kid: Legends – $1.0 million ($51.5 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
Thumbnail image by ©Marvel Studios
