Box Office: ‘Dog Man’ Stays No. 1 in Quiet Super Bowl Weekend, ‘Love Hurts’ Fumbles
Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s canine crime adventure “Dog Man” sniffed and scratched its way to No. 1 at the domestic box office for the second consecutive weekend. Meanwhile two newcomers, Universal’s action comedy “Love Hurts” and Sony’s gory slasher “Heart Eyes,” mostly settled for scraps in this quiet Super Bowl stretch.
“Dog Man,” a family film about a police officer who becomes surgically fused to his faithful pup after getting injured on the job, collected $13.7 million from 3,887 North American theaters over the weekend. Those ticket sales, down 62% from its $36 million debut, were behind the second-weekend projections of $19 million to $22 million. So far, “Dog Man” has grossed $54.1 million domestically and $66 million globally against its $40 million budget.
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“Heart Eyes” lead the way in terms of new releases with $8.5 million from 3,102 cinemas. The R-rated film, fully financed and produced by “Scream” backers Spyglass Media Group, cost a modest $18 million.
Reviews were surprisingly killer for a slasher, though audience reactions were more in line with the genre; “Heart Eyes” earned an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and “B-” grade on CinemaScore from moviegoers. Directed by Josh Ruben and starring Olivia Holt (Marvel’s “Cloak and Dagger”) and Mason Gooding (“Scream”), “Heart Eyes” follows an infamous masked murderer known as the Heart Eyes Killer, whose modus operandi is slaying couples on Valentine’s Day.
“Love Hurts,” led by Oscar-winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, debuted in third place with $5.8 million from 3,055 venues. Neither critics nor ticket buyers liked the film, which holds a dismal 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and landed a “C+” grade on CinemaScore.
While that reception doesn’t bode well for word-of-mouth, “Love Hurts” carries an $18 million price tag, so any theatrical losses won’t be as painful as reviews. (One critic wrote, “‘Love Hurts’ hurts. It hurts to look at. It hurts to sit through,” — and that wasn’t even the harshest of critiques.) Stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio, whose credits include such action blockbusters as “Black Panther,” “The Avengers” and “John Wick,” directed the R-rated film in his feature debut. Quan stars as a mild-mannered realtor whose past as a violent hitman comes back to haunt him after he finds out his left-for-dead former partner-in-crime is very much alive.
Another noteworthy release, “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” a Sony Pictures Classics documentary that chronicles the origins and meteoric rise of the iconic English rock band, powered to the No. 7 spot with an impressive $2.6 million on just 369 Imax screens. The film had the strongest turnout on the coasts, as well as markets like Toronto, Cleveland, St. Louis and Dallas, according to Imax. “Becoming Led Zeppelin,” along with the Talking Heads classic “Stop Making Sense” (which A24 somewhat recently re-released) and Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” points to the growing popularity of theatrical concert films.
The Super Bowl, while great for TV ratings, rarely (if ever) coincides with championship-worthy box office ticket sales. This wasn’t the slowest Super Bowl weekend on record — that ignominious distinction remains with 2024’s haul of $38.9 million, led by “Argylle” and “Lisa Frankenstein. Yet overall revenues topped out at $59 million, hardly enough to prompt an end zone celebration. That’s because turnout around the big game (this Sunday’s matchup is between Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles) is far behind pre-pandemic times. By comparison, Super Bowl weekend brought back $84 million in 2020 and $75 million in 2019.
Elsewhere on domestic box office charts, Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” added another $3.9 million in its eighth weekend of release. The photorealistic prequel, which opened around Christmas, has generated $235.2 million in North America and $671 million worldwide to date.
Warner Bros. and New Line’s satirical sci-fi thriller “Companion” rounded out the top five with $3 million from 3,285 theaters. Despite excellent reviews and audience scores, ticket sales collapsed by a massive 68% from its debut. So far, “Companion” has earned $15.4 million domestically and $26.7 million globally.
More to come…
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