Sony’s Brad Pitt-starring Bullet Train topped the domestic box office this weekend with a $32.4 million debut, Varietyreports.
And while it also earned over $60 million globally, the David Leitch-directed actioner, which cost $90 million to make, fell short of industry. expectations.
“A big film like this with lot of expectations should have had stronger debut,” Jeff Bock, senior media analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told Variety. “That said, there’s not a lot of competition in August, so Bullet Train should have a good window to make its mark in the coming weeks.”
Earlier this week, Pitt and co-stars Brian Tyree Henry, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson spoke with Complex about Bullet Train.
“The first thing that was evident about this script and we read it right in the dankest, loneliest part of Covid, was that it was so damn funny and all these characters had their own thing going on so I knew we were going to draw an all-star cast—well, mostly all-star cast,” Pitt said about bringing the script to life.
As for the film’s fight scenes, Pitt described what it was like to collaborate with the star-studded cast on the action sequences.
“I mean I have a lot of respect for everyone who signed on for this,” he added. “Aaron was one of the first. We saw his tape and we said, ‘Oh, we’re up and running. We got this. This thing is going to work.’ I don’t know, there was just so much levity. It was just so nice to be around people. It was that dark point of lockdown and we didn’t see a way out yet. And just to be there with this kind of subject matter, which is funny, the fights which are funny, this cast and as I say, everyone held their own so it was pretty evenly matched.”
Elsewhere in the box office, Top Gun: Maverickcontinued to smash all kinds of records. The hugely successful sequel officially overtook Titanic to become the 7th highest grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, with a total of $662 million. While the film’s numbers have obviously waned since its May release, it’s by far the biggest movie of the year, and should continue to climb the all-time list as we inch closer to the fall.
