UPDATE: 2025-07-23 08:07 EST BY BRENNAN KLEIN
Reagan Slightly Overperforms Projections But Stays At No. 4
This article was originally written Saturday AM and has been updated Sunday AM with altered box office projections (in bold), a full chart, and further analysis.
Reaganhas dominated a horde of other new releases during the slow Labor Day weekend at the domestic box office. The new movie, directed by Sean McNamara, is a biopic of former President Ronald Reagan starring Dennis Quaid in the title role. TheReaganreleasecame during the final weekend of August, at the same time as several similar non-tentpole new releases, including the Blumhouse AI horror movieAfraid, the L.A. riots thriller1992, the human trafficking movieCity of Dreams, and the Casey Affleck sci-fi movieSlingshot.
PerVariety, as of Sunday morning, projections for the domestic box office show the overall grosses turning out one of the summer’s slower weekends in spite of the four-day Labor Day holiday. The holdover hitDeadpool & Wolverineis continuing to reign supreme, taking the No. 1 spot for the fifth non-consecutive time with a projected four-day total of$19.5 million. Of the raft of new releases hitting theaters, the most prominent wasReagan, which isprojected to rake in a four-day debut of $9.2 million and land on the chart at No. 4.
Reagan Lands Among A Cadre Of Holdover Hits On The Top 5 Chart
The Domestic Chart Is Populated With Familiar Titles
BecauseReaganbarely made a dent in the box office Top 5 and last weekend’s new releases had previously debuted in the No. 4 and No. 5 positions, the Top 3 titles for the weekend remain unchanged. In addition toDeadpool & Wolverinecontinuing its chart-topping reign, the sci-fi horror sequelAlien: Romulushas maintained its position at No. 2while the Blake Lively romanceIt Ends with Ushas continued to hold the bronze at No. 3. Below, see the most up-to-date Top 5 chart with both 3- and 4-day projections for the holiday weekend:
1
$15.2 million
$19.5 million
$603.8 million (weekend 6)
2
$9.3 million
$11.5 million
$91 million (weekend 3)
3
$7.4 million
$9.5 million
$135.8million (weekend 4)
4
$9.2 million
$9.2 million (weekend 1)
5
$7.1 million
$8.7 million
$259.6 million (weekend 7)
AccompanyingReagantoward the bottom is theTwistersrelease, rising back up to No. 5 after a week off the chart at No. 6. The Glen Powell disaster movie is in its seventh weekend in theaters, but it’s been showing strong results, buoying back up to fill in any gaps on the chart, as have been left by the departure of the previous weekend’s charting new releases.Blink Twice, which dropped from No. 4 to No. 6, andThe Forge, which dropped from No. 5 to No. 7, both showed solid holds with week-on-week drops of 28% and 32% respectively.
However,The Crowhas vanished from the wider chart entirely. The previous weekend’s third major new release, which stars Bill Skarsgård in a reimagining of the iconic comic, had debuted outside the Top 10 at No. 8. Its position has been claimed byDespicable Me 4, followed closely by theBlumhouse AI horror movieAfraid, which took No. 9, just above the third weekend of the dazzlingCoraline15th anniversary re-release.Afraidis the only other new release for the weekend to land in the Top 10, with a 3-day gross of $3.7 million and a 4-day of $4.4 million.
The weekend’s other new releases are scattered well below the Top 10, as1992landed at No. 14 with 3-/4-day grosses of $1.3 million/$1.65 million,City of Dreamsdebuted at No. 19 with $760,000/$990,000, andSlingshotfell even lower with $485,282/$572,763.
How Reagan Is Performing Compared To Similar Movies
The Presidential Biopic Still Needs To Make Back Its Budget
Although it defeated the other new releases for the weekend, premiering at No. 4 shows thatReagancould not quite muster the strength to elbow out the holdover hits for the weekend, even though some of them had been in theaters for roughly a month or more. However,the movie only cost $25 million, so it does not necessarily need to compete with rivals like theDeadpool & Wolverinebox office, as that title is a big-budget superhero blockbuster. Below, see how it measures up to comparable presidential biopics or similar releases:
$40 million
$5.2 million
$205.4 million
$44 million
$2.2 million
$13.7 million
$65 million
$12 million
$52.1 million
$25 million
$180,708 (limited)
$27.4 million
$25.1 million
$10.5 million
$29.5 million
$944,308 (limited)
$275.3 million
$20 million
$1.1 million
$2.5 million
TBD
Generally, a movie needs to earn somewhere between two and two-and-a-half times its budget in order to turn a profit in theaters, whichcould placeReagan’s break-even point somewhere between $50 and $62.5 million. However, given the precedent set by previous presidential biopics, even those that opened higher than $7.4 million, it seems somewhat unlikely to hit that mark. The only ones that were runaway successes wereJFKandLincoln, which had well-known filmmakers Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg attached, and it does not seem likely that McNamara has the same sort of household brand name appeal as those directors.
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It ultimately remains to be seen howReaganperforms throughout its theatrical run. While it will have fierce competition in its second weekend with the release of the Tim Burton legacy sequelBeetlejuice Beetlejuice, September is relatively free of major adult new releases, with the biggest upcoming titles being the animated prequelTransformers Oneand the Halle Berry horror thrillerNever Let Go. This could allow the biopic a clear runway to continue to draw in audiences throughout the close of the summer movie season.
Reagan
Cast
Reagan follows the life of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, from his time as a young boy through his tenure in the Oval Office.
