Box Office Update: Spider-Man Leads, ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Triumphs Over ‘The Dog Stars’

‘The Dog Stars’ struggles badly in its opening weekend, while the rescued Looney Tunes hybrid becomes the box office story of the summer.

Spider-Man’s world just got a little more crowded this weekend, and the results across the board are a genuine mixed bag. Spider-Man: Brand New Day keeps climbing toward $900 million domestic, a mark almost no film ever reaches. It’s still the clear king of the box office five weekends in.

But the real story this weekend belongs to a film Warner Bros. once wrote off entirely. Coyote vs. Acme was shelved outright back in 2023, dismissed as a tax write-off before fan outrage and an indie distributor’s rescue turned it into one of the most closely watched titles of the summer. Its opening weekend numbers suggest that gamble is paying off in a real way.

Not every big swing landed, though. Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars opened into fifth place with a rough set of numbers across every metric that matters, from CinemaScore to Rotten Tomatoes. Between a rescued underdog outperforming expectations and a starry prestige project falling flat, this was a weekend that scrambled a lot of the usual assumptions about what draws an audience.

Coyote Vs. Acme Pulls Off A Real Underdog Story

Coyote vs. Acme is heading toward third place with roughly $14 million, a genuinely strong result for Ketchup Entertainment, the indie distributor that rescued the film after Warner Bros. shelved it in 2023 for a tax write-off. The film earned an A CinemaScore, a 93% positive score, and an 82% definite recommend on PostTrak. Critics have been even more enthusiastic, with the film sitting around 95% fresh alongside a similarly strong audience score.

This marks a new domestic opening record for Ketchup Entertainment, well ahead of its previous high, 2024’s The Day the Earth Blew Up, which opened to $3.1 million. The studio kept marketing spend thrifty, around $10 million, after acquiring the film globally for $50 million and selling off roughly $20 million in foreign rights.

Social analytics firm RelishMix measured the film’s pre-release social reach at 115.5 million across TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. Lower than 2021’s Tom & Jerry hybrid at 159 million, but the engagement has run unusually positive.

RelishMix described the audience treating the film;

“less like another release and more like a long-overdue rescue mission,” pointing to comparisons fans keep drawing to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

John Cena, who plays the film’s villain, has been actively promoting it to his 83 million social followers.

The film’s demographics skew young: 66% of its audience came in under 35, with the 25-34 bracket alone making up 38%. The audience leaned 57% male.

Dog Stars Struggles Badly In Its Debut

Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars opened in fifth place with roughly $8 million, a rough result for a starry, big-budget production. The film earned a C+ CinemaScore, a 65% positive score, and a weak 41% definite recommend on PostTrak. Critics weren’t kind either, with the film landing around 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The result echoes last year’s Caught Stealing, another auteur-driven project that opened soft and faded fast. It’s a better outcome than Scott’s 2013 film The Counselor, which received a D CinemaScore and finaled at just $16.9 million domestic despite a cast that included Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Penélope Cruz, and Michael Fassbender.

Jacob Elordi’s fan base didn’t show up in force. Women under 25 made up just 6% of the opening weekend audience. Men over 25 led the way at 45%, followed by women over 25 at 39%.

Buddy Opens Small But Reviews Well

Outside the top five, Roadside Attractions and Saban’s R-rated horror comedy Buddy opened to roughly $4.65 million across 1,258 theaters. The film is running 88% fresh with critics and 81% with audiences, some of the strongest reviews of the weekend. It performed especially well with the 18-24 demographic, pulling 41% of its audience from that group, and found real strength in major markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Orlando, Phoenix, and San Diego.

Spider-Man Keeps Climbing Toward A Rare Milestone

Spider-Man: Brand New Day posted a fifth-weekend total of $21 million, still good enough for first place. Its domestic total now sits at $869.2 million, putting it within striking distance of $900 million, a mark only one other film has ever crossed. The film is currently running 5% ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the same point in its release, which finaled at $936.6 million domestic.

Insidious: Out of the Further fell steeply in its second weekend, down 63% to $9.3 million, bringing its 10-day total to $42.8 million.

How The Full Weekend Shook Out

Spider-Man: Brand New Day topped the chart for a fourth-straight week, adding $53.3 million on a 47% drop and pushing its domestic total to $869.2 million. Insidious: Out of the Further debuted in second place with $33.5 million in its opening week. The Odyssey held steady in third with $29.9 million, down 21%, bringing its own domestic total to $549.5 million in its sixth week. PAW Patrol: Dino Movie rounded out fourth with $12.12 million, down 54%, for a running total of $38.4 million. The End of Oak Street landed in a near-tie for fifth with $12.11 million, down 58%, for a total of $41 million. Mutiny opened just outside the top five with $10.4 million in its first week.

The weekend overall is tracking toward roughly $100 million across all releases, up 55% from the same weekend a year ago.

Joanthan P. Moustakas

Jonathan P. Moustakas founded The Cinema Group in 2020 during the challenges of the pandemic, after losing the vital ability to find community in theaters and escape through the captivating magic of cinema. Feeling profoundly cut off from the vibrant film community he cherished, he sought to create a welcoming home for dedicated cinema fans while providing engaging, daily curated content that resonates with their passions. Years later, The Cinema Group has blossomed from a small collective of loyal fans into a thriving brand that reaches millions of audiences every month across a diverse array of platforms and mediums.

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