Box office: Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio beaten by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is still the queen of the box office. After its stellar start last week, the singer’s concert film once again won first place in the ranking during this weekend of October 20 to 22, 2023. For its part, Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese is off to a modest… but promising start.

Third best start for Scorsese

Last week, fans of the pop star offered Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour a record start with $92.8 million raised in 3 days. The concert film obviously still had some under the hood, since it once again collected 31 million for its second weekend of release.

A score certainly in sharp decline (-66.6%), but which allows Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour to become the only concert film in history to remain at the top of the box office, and the first to exceed the symbolic mark of 100 million in the United States, with 129.7 million greenbacks collected. Not bad for a production with a modest budget of $15 million.

But the event of the week was of course the release of Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese. For its first weekend, the film recorded 23 million dollars, a solid score for a 3 hour 26 film with a rather obscure subject. It is above all the third best start to the director’s career, behind Shutter Island (41 million) and The Departed (26.9 million).

On paper, this start may seem very light for a film with a substantial budget of 200 million dollars. But if there is one duo not to be underestimated, it is the one formed by Scorsese and DiCaprio. In 2013, The wolf of Wall Street had also started modestly (18.3 million) to end his career with a worldwide accumulation of 406 million dollars.

Buoyed by excellent reviews, good public word of mouth and a future strong representation at the next Oscars, Killers of the Flower Moon can — just like Oppenheimer — hold up very well over time and have a long career. We will have to be attentive to its retention next week.

Moreover, Killers of the Flower Moon is a slightly different case from the others. Produced by Apple, Martin Scorsese’s film is above all the first real attempt by the Cupertino company to establish itself on the cinema market, like Netflix a few years ago. This theatrical release therefore mainly aims to bring the public back to the Apple TV+ streaming platform in a second step. This distribution model will be tested once again by Apple in November with Napoleon by Ridley Scott, then Argyle by Matthew Vaughn in early 2024.

In the rest of the box office, The Exorcist – Devotion still gleans 5.6 million dollars, and finally exceeds the mark of 100 million dollars collected worldwide. A score too low to amortize the 400 million paid by Universal Pictures for the distribution rights of the future trilogy.

For his part, Paw Patrol: the super patrol reached 148 million dollars worldwide, and will surpass the score of the first film next week (151 million). Also note the beautiful result of the release of The strange Christmas of Mr. Jack for the 30th anniversary of the film, which collected 4.1 million dollars. This is enough to kill Saw X of the top 5.

US box office October 20-22, 2023 (estimates)