‘It Ends with Us’ Makes $50 Million Opening Weekend, Where ‘Borderlands’ Flops With $8.8 Million

Courtesy of Sony Pictures

A 2016 film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (who also the directed the film), grossed an impressive $50 million from 3,611 North American theaters in its opening weekend. “It Ends with Us” earned $30 million internationally for an $80 million global debut. It was a major win for the film, which was co-financed by Sony Pictures and Justin Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios for $25 million. It Ends with Us tells the story of Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), a small business owner who finds herself embroiled in a love triangle between a charming but abusive neurosurgeon, Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni), and her first boyfriend, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar). Reviews were mixed, but audiences responded enthusiastically to the PG-13 romantic drama, which earned an “A-” on CinemaScore.

David A. who runs the film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research, says, “It is a sensational start for a romantic drama film, pure romance doesn’t do well at the box office, but sometimes the right story comes along. The right book and a well-played female lead the film catches fire. That’s happening here.”

TikTok and female audiences boosted advance ticket sales for It Ends with Us, with Sony reporting that nearly half of the opening weekend audience was made up of rare moviegoers. In other words, the film was aimed at an audience that hadn’t been forced to head to their local theater in a while. Since Colleen Hoover wrote a hit sequel, It Starts with Us, it’s safe to assume Lily Bloom, Ryle Kincaid and Atlas Corrigan, will be returning to the big screen.

It Ends with Us narrowly missed the top spot with “Deadpool & Wolverine,” starring Blake Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds, which added $54.2 million from 4,330 screens in its third weekend. In the first month of August (a traditional slow season for multiplexes), two films have grossed $50 million in the same weekend. A married couple has had their films top the domestic box office, It also marks the first time in 34 years, since Bruce Willis in “Die Hard 2” and Demi Moore in “Ghost” took first and second place, respectively, in 1990.

The Marvel movie’s senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian says, “Obviously, the momentum this month gave as a gift was a factor,” which debuted late of last month. “But the real key to the dynamic duo topping this weekend’s charts was the perfect timing of It Ends with Us, which comes on the heels of Deadpool & Wolverine, which produced this unusual and welcome result in August.”

Deadpool & Wolverine Box Office

Deadpool & Wolverine has dominated the box office for three consecutive weekends, grossing $494.3 million domestically and $1.029 billion worldwide to date. In the days to come, Marvel superhero adventure will surpass 2019’s “Joker” ($1.07 billion) as the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.

Borderlands Fall Down at the Box Office

Another new release this weekend, Lionsgate’s video game adaptation “Borderlands,” starring Cate Blanchett, flopped with an $8.8 million opening from 3,125 theaters. It ranked fourth place behind “Twisters,” which added $15.4 million from 3,664 locations in its fourth outing. Universal’s disaster epic earned $222 million domestically and $310 million globally.

Borderlands fared less well at the foreign box office with $7.7 million, bringing its worldwide total to an embarrassing $16.5 million. Although about 60 percent of Borderlands production costs were covered by international pre-sales, according to studio sources, that’s still a disastrous result for the film, and well below already low pre-release expectations. Borderlands had a production budget of about $115 million and marketing and distribution costs of $30 million.