Oak Street Box Office Roars, but Spider-Man Still Wins

The Oak Street box office debut is on course to be the biggest new opening in America this weekend, and it still isn't going to finish first. Warner Bros. and Bad Robot's dinosaur thriller "The End of Oak Street" pulled in more than $2 million from Thursday previews at roughly 3,200 theaters, according to Deadline, heading toward a domestic weekend of $18 million to $23 million.

Stack the overseas launch on top — 74 territories, about 24,000 screens, France to China to Brazil — and the trade projects a global opening of $38 million to $48 million. That sounds enormous until you set it against the price tag. Deadline reports a net production budget somewhere between $80 million and $92 million, and that figure doesn't include the marketing spend that got a PG-13 original onto 3,200 American screens in the middle of August.

Here's the twist that makes the weekend interesting. The movie almost certainly won't be No. 1. "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" is in its third weekend and is still expected to post $57 million to $72 million. A three-week-old sequel is about to outgross a brand-new blockbuster by a factor of roughly three.

What the Oak Street Box Office Numbers Actually Say

Trade forecasts for the film cluster in a tight band. Deadline lands at $18 million to $23 million domestically; Variety headlined a $25 million debut; Gold Derby's forecast sits in the same neighborhood. When Deadline, Variety and the studio's own tracking all agree within a few million, the number is usually real. At roughly $12 a ticket, a $20 million weekend works out to something like 1.7 million admissions across the country.

The reviews are genuinely good. Deadline puts the film at 85 percent certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which is unusual air for a big-swing creature feature. Director David Robert Mitchell made his name with the micro-budget horror hit "It Follows," and this is his first film operating at studio scale, with Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor carrying a story about a neighborhood that finds a prehistoric jungle growing where the cul-de-sac used to end.

How to Read a Thursday Preview Number

Preview grosses get quoted like gospel every Friday morning, but they only mean something next to a comparable title. Two things distort this one.

The 1 p.m. Head Start

Screenings began at 1 p.m. Thursday, not the traditional 5 or 6 p.m. That's most of an extra business day folded into the "preview" figure, and it quietly borrows from what would otherwise be Friday's total. A $2 million preview that ran nine hours is not the same animal as a $2 million preview that ran five.

What Rampage and Blue Beetle Suggest

Deadline's comps are instructive. "Rampage" did $2.4 million in 2018 previews. "Blue Beetle" did $3.3 million in 2023 and opened to $25 million. Both are roughly the same shape of movie: effects-heavy, star-fronted, not a beloved franchise. That history is exactly why the $18 million to $23 million range looks honest rather than conservative.

The Math That Decides If This Was Worth It

Studios split ticket revenue with exhibitors, so a rough industry rule is that a film needs somewhere near two-and-a-half times its production budget in worldwide gross before theatrical profit enters the conversation. On an $80 million to $92 million net budget, that's a target north of $200 million globally. A $38 million to $48 million opening gets there only with legs — strong word of mouth, weekday holds, and second and third weekends that drop 40 percent instead of 60.

Good reviews and a PG-13 rating are the two ingredients that historically produce those legs. This is the rare August wide release built from nothing but a script, which means there's no fanbase floor and no fanbase ceiling either.

Who Else Is Fighting for Your Saturday Night

The weekend is crowded in a way that matters for showtimes. "PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie" opens at 3,545 theaters from Paramount and Spin Master, and Angel Studios' "The Brink of War" lands at 2,083. Two dinosaur-adjacent releases on the same Friday is a scheduling quirk that splits family matinees, and it's part of why the Warner Bros. film is unlikely to own the daytime crowd.

• Spider-Man: Brand New Day — third weekend, projected $57M–$72M
• The End of Oak Street — 3,200 theaters, projected $18M–$23M
• PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie — 3,545 theaters
• The Brink of War — 2,083 theaters

What to Watch for by Monday

Ignore the headline number Sunday and look at two things instead. First, the internal multiplier: divide the three-day gross by Friday's take. Anything above 2.8 means audiences told their friends. Second, the international split — with 74 territories firing at once, a soft overseas number is harder to recover from than a soft domestic one. If you're deciding what to see this weekend, the practical read is simple: the crowds will be at Spider-Man, so the better-reviewed movie is the one with seats left.