‘Black Phone 2’ triumphs and breathes some life into a lethargic box office that suffers from the failure of ‘Tron: Ares’

It cannot be said that the box office, in general, is at its best: despite the fact that, during the summer, films once again became culturally important, This October they seem to be crawling on the ground and bleeding to death little by little. Adult dramas not associated with franchises are not taking off and the blockbusters that have tried, such as ‘Tron: Ares’, have not managed to rise. Luckily, we can always rely on terror.

Black phone, we fly to success

‘Black Phone 2’, as we see in Boxofficemojo, has entered like a shot into a box office in need of successes, with 42 million dollars at the global box office and 26.5 million dollars at the American box office, slightly better than its first partIn fact, it will soon make a profit (its budget is 30 million) and it would be strange if we didn’t see an announcement of its third installment soon. Nobody resists a sure success these days, and even less so Blumhouse, which until now had not raised its head this year with projects like ‘M3gan 2’ or ‘Hombre Lobo’ (and which will predictably have another bombshell in December with ‘Five Nights At Freddy’s 2’).

In second place, both in the United States and globally, is ‘Tron: Ares’, which has exceeded 100 million dollars at the box office (103, to be more exact). The figure may seem positive, but taking into account its budget of 180 million, Disney can write it down as insured losses (and the theaters as less income). Of course, she can be relatively proud, because the rest of the box office is merely anecdotal.

The only new American entries have been ‘Good fortune’, Aziz Ansari’s first film as a director, which came in at number 3 with 6.2 million grossed (not bad for an R-rated comedy, but good enough to face its 30 million budget), and ‘Truth & Treason’, which had to settle for 2.7 million. Despite everything, the budget of this drama with very good reviews is low, so it can make money.

One week after another

Of course, ‘One Battle After Another’ continues to hold its own in the top 5, whose decline is very, very slow and already exceeds 162.5 million globally (on the verge of collecting what it cost, but very far from making a profit). Also surprising is the very weak rise of ‘Witch Hunt’, the new release by Luca Guadagnino, which has gone from a limited release to doing so throughout the country, achieving just 1.5 million dollars this weekend. Word of mouth is not being good and his chances for the Oscar are gradually diluting along with the public’s indifference.

In Spain, for its part and according to Comscore, with the premiere of ‘Black Phone 2’ scheduled for next week, the top 1 has shown that there is an audience that needs family cinema thanks to ‘Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie’, followed by the native ‘The Dinner’. Just We find two other Spanish films in the top 10 despite the number of releases in recent weeks. One is ‘The Debt’, which is ranked 7th, just ahead of ‘The Life of Chuck’ and ‘Witch Hunt’, and the other, the tireless ‘The Captive’, which is about to say goodbye to the box office after a spectacular performance (it will end up close to 5 million euros).

And the next few weeks, what? Will we have something that revolutionizes the box office? In Spain we will have the fantastic ‘Los Domingos’, but in the United States… Focus trusts Yorgos Lanthimos and ‘Bugonia’, and Disney does the same with ‘Springsteen’ and ‘Predator: Badlands’, in a few weeks that Surprisingly, they do not bet on horror despite having Halloween around the corner. In fact, probably until ‘The Running Man’, on November 14, we will not see the resurrection of a box office that seems to have thrown in the towel with the general public. We will see.

In Espinof | K-Popers, sharks, witches and wizards. Event films continue to keep the industry afloat regardless of their age

In Espinof | The best movies of 2025