Spider-Man, Elemental Beat The Flash on Wednesday — The Hollywood Reporter

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Elemental,” and “The Flash.”

launching Sony Pictures/Marvel Entertainment/Courtesy Everett Collection; Disney/Pixar Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics

In mid-week turmoil, Sony held Spider-Man: Through the Spider-Verse The new Pixar Animation racist outperformed Warner Bros. DC tent superhero the light at the box office on Wednesday.

both of them the light And racist It opened over the weekend of June 16-18 with decidedly poor results. The first started with $55 million for the following days, well below expectations and significantly lower than the $67 million that fellow DC pic raised. Black Adam last year (Black Adamstarring Dwayne Johnson, was considered a huge disappointment).

the light It was one of, if not the year, the hottest titles on the 2023 summer release calendar, despite star Ezra Miller’s personal troubles and multiple arrests in 2022. All indicators pointed to the light opening to $100 million or more domestically when Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav took over. Discovery, the theater in late April at CinemaCon, and theater owners told it was the best superhero picture they had ever seen.

However, the pic was rejected by a wide swath of the audience on its opening weekend even as it ranked #1, earning an average B CinemaScore and equally tepid exit ratings on PostTrak.

racist It opened to a worst-ever $29.6 million, the lowest three-day start in Pixar history when adjusted for 1995. Toy Story for inflation. The bright side: racist It boasts strong A CinemaScore and PostTrak scores, which helps explain why it won the light Wednesday’s $3.5 million vs. $3.1 million.

Animated sequel Spider-Man: Through the Spider-Versenow in its third week, won Wednesday grossing $3.8 million for a heroic domestic tally north of $294 million.

the light It ended Wednesday with a six-day domestic earnings of $69.5 million; And racist$43.4 million.

All eyes will be on the light To see if it can regain the top spot on Thursday on its way to winning the June 23-25 ​​box office race, or if racistMore positive word of mouth makes the competition even closer.

Sony will have double duty this weekend, between Spidey and the new R-rated Jennifer Lawrence No hard feelings, which is tracked to open to $10 million to $12 million. The actress stars opposite Andrew Barth-Feldman in the film, the first in a series of raunchy summer comedies hoping to revive the troubled genre at the box office (no small feat).

The other new nationwide show is Wes Anderson’s Asteroid Citywhich is expanding nationwide after scoring the best per-location average at the specialty box office since then La La Land in 2016. The Focus Features release hopes to debut in the $5 million range.