Jack Quaid’s action-comedy “Novocaine” topped a painfully slow weekend at the box office with $8.7 million. It’s one of the worst debuts to still capture the No. 1 spot.https://t.co/CnTLofl0wz pic.twitter.com/rmy3pDENdK
— Variety (@Variety) March 16, 2025
Movie theaters are not having a great 2025 so far, with this weekend’s first place finisher Novocaine bringing in only $8.7 million. It only cost $18 million to make, so it can still potentially be profitable, but it’s one of the worst #1 finishes at the box office. In fact, the total box office haul for this weekend totalled under $50 million, an absolutely terrible result for theaters.
Mickey 17 was second place in its second weekend with only $7.6 million, dropping an enormous 60% from its first weekend, which was already not great.
Newcomer Black Bag came in just behind Mickey, with $7.5 million from 1000 less screens. Steven Soderbergh is an efficient filmmaker, but it still cost $50 million to make, so Focus finding a profit on this adult-aimed spy drama may be difficult.
In fourth place was Captain America: Brave New World with a $5.2 million take, while fifth place was occupied by The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, bringing in $3 million. That film was rescued from the Warner Bros scrap heap by Ketchup Entertainment – otherwise, it would have gone to the bin like WB’s other Looney Tunes tax write-off, Coyote vs. Acme.
New release Opus, which had mixed to negative critical and audience reception, only brought in $1 million, coming in 12th place.
With Snow White and Minecraft on the horizon, the box office should perk up in coming weeks, but these results are certainly troubling.
