Caught Stealing Nabs No. 1 Opening As Jaws Re-Surfaces To Bite Into Holiday Box Office
On its opening Friday, Caught Stealing grabbed the top spot at the box office with 3.2 million in ticket sales, according to The Numbers, while The New York Post branded it an aimless schlep with delusions of grandeur.
Hi, I’m Jaden Patel. I bring you the box office tea with the energy of a polite usher who saw the whole thing and took notes.
Consider this the cinematic equivalent of stealing candy from a multiplex. Caught Stealing, directed by Darren Aronofsky and fronted by Austin Butler, opened at No. 1 on Friday with 3.2 million, per The Numbers. Before you carve its Oscar on a fruit roll-up, Variety forecasts a four-day holiday haul of about 9.5 million. Translation: it took the crown on day one, but the weekend throne is on a wobbly swivel.
The Post, never one to sugarcoat a lemon, delivered the harshest bouquet. The paper called the film an aimless schlep with delusions of grandeur. If that sounds like a blind date review, it is also a reminder that opening at No. 1 does not guarantee a honeymoon. Box office curiosity can coexist with critical side-eye. Imagine a standing ovation politely keeping its hands in its pockets.
Meanwhile, a familiar fin broke the surface. Universal’s 50th anniversary re-release of Jaws surged to second place with 3.08 million on Friday. Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller swam back into theaters and, according to Variety, could reel in around 9.7 million over the four-day frame. Cue the theme music that never left your brain. If those projections hold, the shark might chomp past the newcomer by Monday. Talk about legacy IP with a bite.
Third place went to Weapons, which finally surrendered its streak after holding No. 1 for three consecutive Fridays since its debut. It posted 2.7 million on this particular Friday, a respectable comedown that suggests the audience has sampled the mystery and left some popcorn in the bucket for the next thriller.
In fourth, The Roses made its debut with 2.4 million. This remake of the 1989 scorched-earth marital comedy The War of the Roses comes front-loaded with pedigree, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. The Post was spectacularly unimpressed, labeling it a boring battle and describing its leads as an unappetizing and cringey pair that would push a person to find any excuse to sprint out of an awkward dinner party. If you needed permission to Irish goodbye a toxic dinner scene, consider it notarized.
Fifth place belonged to Freakier Friday with 1.7 million, sliding down from last week’s second-place perch. It is the kind of hold that says, yes, people like body-swap hijinks, but they also have lawn chairs and a holiday weekend to attend to.
So what does this all mean for your streaming queue courage? For starters, The Numbers has the day-one receipts that confirm Caught Stealing’s opening-day edge, while Variety is planting a flag on the long weekend totals that may let Jaws win the marathon after losing the sprint. Those two sources form a nice one-two jab of data and projection. Add The Post’s critical verdicts, and you have the oddly satisfying scenario where a brand-new crime thriller is outpaced in buzz by a half-century-old shark and overshadowed in snark by a brutal review.
There is also a small lesson in franchise physics. Universal timed the Jaws splashdown for an anniversary weekend and tapped nostalgia that prints money as predictably as a summer thunderstorm. Aronofsky and Butler brought the heat, but the crowd may be weighing critic takedowns against curiosity and deciding to keep wetsuits handy. And when a re-release can flirt with a bigger four-day tally than the fresh title du jour, that is not a fluke. It is muscle memory.
As for the middle of the pack, Weapons is settling into the durable lane, The Roses is discovering that remakes live or die on tone and chemistry, and Freakier Friday is proving that second-week legs can get wobbly when a shark shows up. Everyone knows what happens when you swim at dusk.
Keep your eyes on the holiday totals. If Variety’s forecast lands, Jaws could take the four-day crown while Caught Stealing keeps the opening-day bragging rights. And if The Post’s barbed wire write-ups sway undecided viewers, the Monday leaderboard could look very different from Friday’s quick take.
File this under box office irony: the movie called Caught Stealing briefly stole first place, and the movie about a shark might steal it back. Gravity works. So do teeth. Tune in for the final tally and find out which title is still floating when the credits roll on the long weekend.
That is the scoop, served dry. If you need me, I will be pretending my seat is not in the splash zone.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and The New York Post, The Numbers, Variety
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