While its fate isn’t yet sealed, Karate Kid: Legends opened behind expectations at the domestic box office, despite teaming original star Ralph Macchio and beloved action legend Jackie Chan, who starred in the 2010 redux.
Sony is estimating a third-place North American opening of $21 million from 3,809 theaters for the male-fueled film (rival studios show it coming in closer to $20 million). Heading into the weekend, tracking had the pic debuting to $25 million; three weeks ago, that number was a far more promising $35 million. Overseas, where it began rolling out early, Legends took in another $12 million for an early foreign tally of $26 million and $47 million globally (it has only opened in 40 percent of the marketplace).
Regardless of a soft opening, Sony remains confident that the PG-13 film will sport strong chops, thanks to an A- CinemaScore and solid exits. And its net production budget was a modest $45 million before marketing.
Critics are far more divided than audiences when it comes to Karate Kid: Legends, which features Ben Wang in the titular role. His character is mentored by both the characters played by Macchio, star of the classic 1984 movie and, far more recently, Netflix’s acclaimed Cobra Kai series, which ran for six seasons and ended earlier this year.
In 2010, Sony successfully reinvigorated the franchise with The Karate Kid, starring Chan opposite Jaden Smith. The movie, opening to $55 million domestically, was one of the year’s top hits.
Box office pundits are already speculating that franchise fans may have been sated by Cobra Kai, at least for the time being. The series was viewed as a sequel to the first three films; the threequel was released in 1989. They add that middling reviews for Legends certainly aren’t helping.
And then there’s the Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible factor. Both movies continued to do strong business in their second outings after fueling a record Memorial Day weekend.
Lilo & Stitch — which has shattered numerous records and is likely to become the first Hollywood movie of 2025 to join the billion-dollar box office club — continues to exceed all expectations. It remained No. 1 this weekend both domestically and overseas as it zoomed past the $610 million mark globally after grossing another $63 million domestically from 4,410 locations and $113.1 million overseas.
In less than two weeks, the pic has already become the second top-grossing Hollywood release of 2025 behind Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie ($947.1 million). Ditto for North America, where it has now passed up Ryan Coogler’s sleeper hit Sinners ($350.1 million).
The live-action update of the 2002 animated film has also played a key role in helping Disney become the first Hollywood studio of 2025 to cross the $2 billion mark in worldwide ticket sales, including $1 billion domestically.
Paramount and Skydance’s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, starring Tom Cruise in his final turn as uber spy Ethan Hunt, remained squarely in second place with an estimated sophomore outing of $27.2 million from 3,861 theaters for a 10-day North American tally of $122 million. Final Reckoning is benefiting greatly from its exclusive Imax run.
Overseas, the Christopher McQuarrie-directed pic earned another $76.1 million for an international cume of $231.2 million and $353.8 million globally. M:I has always done big business in China, and Final Reckoning is no exception, even if returns from the Chinese box office are far less than what they used to be. The movie, debuting there on Friday, has already become the top-grossing imported title of the year.
In its third outing, Warner/New Line’s Final Destination: Bloodlines came in fourth domestically with $10.8 million from 3,134 locations for a North American total of $111.7 million and $229.3 million worldwide.
Karate Kid wasn’t the only new nationwide offering. Danny and Michael Philippou’s highly anticipated horror pic Bring Her Back, from A24 and starring Sally Hawkins, rounded out the top five with an estimated $7.1 million from 2,449 cinemas. The critically acclaimed film was graced with a B+ CinemaScore from audiences, which is like an A when it comes to the horror genre. Overseas, where Sony is assisting in releasing, it earned $1 million from its first eight markets.
At the specialty box office, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme opened in six locations domestically and secured the top per-location average of the year to date, or $95,000, following its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features and Indian Paintbrush partnered on the film, whose ensemble cast is led by Benicio del Toro, and sports an early international total of $6.2 million and $6.8 million globally.
This story was originally published May 31 at 10:38 a.m.
