2023 will be looked back on as a year where studios (hopefully) learned how to better manage budgets. While Insidious: The Red Door received some below-average reviews, its meager $16 million budget and generally unique premise helped draw audiences to an excellent $32.6 million domestic debut with another $31.4 million internationally. That put it comfortably above Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which only drew $26.5 million domestically in its second weekend (or a 56% drop from last week. Ouch). While Disney will likely need to take a tax write-off for Indy’s final romp, the producers of Insidious are likely thrilled.
Elsewhere at the box office, new release Sound of Freedom grabbed third place with an $18.2 million debut and the Adele Lim-directed comedy Joy Ride took sixth with $5.8 million. While that is solid for the Jim Caviezel vehicle (which only cost $14.5 million), Lim’s Joy Ride has a lot of ground to make up if it hopes to recover its reported $32 million budget.
As for the rest of the top 10, it’s the same stuff we’ve been seeing for the last few weeks. While Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has been a huge success and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has become big thanks to its international gross, the other films have been practically DOA. The Flash even fell out of the top 10 and is likely to finish its theatrical run in the red. It really has no hope with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One releasing this Wednesday.
Here is how the top 10 played out at the domestic box office for the weekend of July 7 – 9, 2023:
- Insidious: The Red Door – $32.6 million
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – $26.5 million
- Sound of Freedom – $18.2 million
- Elemental – $9.6 million
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – $8 million
- Joy Ride – $5.85 million
- No Hard Feelings – $5.2 million
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts – $5 million
- The Little Mermaid – $3.5 million
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken – $2.8 million
