Ready for a weird/terrible box office fact? While Paul Thomas Anderson has spent decades establishing himself as one of the greatest filmmakers of the modern era, all of his movies prior to 2025 began their box office journey in limited release, meaning that none of them has ever recorded an opening weekend making $1 million. That's a strange streak – but it finally came to an end over the last three days. While going up against some diverse competition on the big screen, Anderson's new feature One Battle After Another easily managed to win the box office, succeeding thanks to a mix of hype and the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio.
Of course, what's good news for Anderson's film isn't great for the head-to-head competition, including Ryan Crego's Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie and Renny Harlin's The Strangers: Chapter 2. You can check out the full domestic Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. One Battle After Another* | $22,400,000 | $22,400,000 | N/A | 3,634 |
2. Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie* | $13,700,000 | $13,700,000 | N/A | 3,500 |
3. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle | $7,100,000 | $118,176,000 | 1 | 2,984 |
4. The Conjuring: Last Rites | $6,860,000 | $161,454,000 | 3 | 3,083 |
5. The Strangers: Chapter 2* | $5,900,000 | $5,900,000 | N/A | 2,690 |
6. Him | $3,650,000 | $20,794,000 | 2 | 3,168 |
7. The Long Walk | $3,400,000 | $28,814,237 | 5 | 2,297 |
8. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale | $3,300,000 | $39,008,000 | 4 | 2,829 |
9. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey | $1,250,000 | $5,923,000 | 6 | 3,330 |
10. Spider-Man 2 | $1,113,472 | $375,828,527 | N/A | 1,484 |
Rave Reviews Propels One Battle After Another To A Strong Start At The Box Office
Around this time two years ago, critical acclaim and the popularity of Leonardo DiCaprio ended up only counting for so much. When Martin Scorsese's epic and brilliant Killers Of The Flower Moon arrived in theaters, it had the required buzz to be a hit, but the film had to settle for a second place finish in its opening weekend, making just $9.4 million and landing behind Sam Wrench's Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in its second weekend. That wasn't pretty to witness (if not especially because the production worked with a reported $200 million budget), but things have worked out much better in 2025 for One Battle After Another.
The new Paul Thomas Anderson movie also wasn't exactly inexpensive to make, with Variety reporting a cost of between $130–$175 million, but it's off to a much better start at the box office than Leonardo DiCaprio's last big screen adventure. According to The Numbers, the work easily took the top spot in the United States and Canada over the last three days, earning $22.4 million while playing in over 3,600 theaters.
The win comes after the One Battle After Another successfully earned heaps and heaps of positive buzz. The movie is a (very) loose adaptation of the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon – PTA's second whack at the author's work following 2014's Inherent Vice – and acclaim has stemmed from it being a wild mix of genres, as its a political thriller, a stoner comedy and action/adventure all rolled up into one. It's a combo that evidently got audiences very excited, and they turned up in solid numbers for the film's opening weekend.
One Battle After Another is performing so well that it's already ranked as Paul Thomas Anderson's fourth biggest box office hit domestically after just three days. There Will Be Blood from 2007 still sits at the top of the list, having finished its theatrical run earning $40.2 million, and its followed in the ranking by 1997's Boogie Nights ($26.4 million) and 1999's Magnolia ($22.5 million). It is very likely that the writer/director's entry on the 2025 movie release calendar becomes his biggest hit yet.
Further adding to the success are the ticket sales from overseas. While there is a whole lot of "America" in One Battle After Another, the feature has actually earned more from foreign markets thus far than domestic ones – specifically $26.1 million, which brings the film's worldwide total up to $48.5 million. Clearly it's going to have to make a lot more money to end up in the black given its budget and marketing/production costs, but it's off to a hot start.
How this will translate to success next week will be fascinating to watch. In addition to earning extremely positive marks from critics, audiences are also loving the movie and delivered an "A" grade in CinemaScore surveys. Will everyone who saw the film during its theatrical debut go tell their friends and family to check it out, resulting in a soft weekend-to-weekend fall seven days from now? You can be sure that it's something on which I'll be keeping a close eye and will report on in my box office column next week.
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie Has To Settle For Second Place
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of One Battle After Another's box office victory is the fact that it came while the movie was in head-to-head competition with a new family-friendly release. Films targeted at younger audiences have performed like gangbusters in 2025 – the major hits including Jared Hess' A Minecraft Movie, Dean Fleischer Camp's Lilo & Stitch and Dean DeBlois' How To Train Your Dragon – but Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie wasn't able to stir up quite as much excitement as those blockbuster hits.
For those without kids, Gabby’s Dollhouse is a DreamWorks Animation-produced children's series that first premiered for Netflix subscribers in 2021, but it's success on streaming didn't quite translate to huge numbers on the big screen for the franchise's first feature. The movie played in nearly the same number of theaters as One Battle After Another, but it only made about two-thirds of the money per location. The new release made $13.7 million, which ranks as just the 34th biggest opening of 2025 (behind the $14 million made by Osgood Perkins' The Monkey in February).
The Strangers: Chapter 2 Had An Even Worse Opening Weekend Than The Strangers: Chapter 1
While this weekend featured a number of surprises at the box office, one development that is definitely not a surprise is the performance of The Strangers: Chapter 2. Horror fans will remember that its predecessor – an effort to reboot the home invasion-centric franchise – didn't exactly set the world on fire when it came out in May 2024, and now the follow-up has followed suit by doing even worse. During the opening weekend for Renny Harlin's The Strangers: Chapter 1, the film made $11.8 million and landed in third place. The new sequel, despite coming out during Halloween season, managed to do even worse.
Having been shredded by critics, The Strangers: Chapter 2 only made $5.9 million over the last three days, and it had to settle for fifth place. This doesn't set a great precedent for the upcoming The Strangers: Chapter 3, which has already been completed (all three movies were shot simultaneously) and is just waiting for a release date.
Looking ahead to next weekend, October 2025 will be kicking off with an interesting slate of titles, including Ronan Day-Lewis' Anemone (featuring the big screen return of Daniel Day-Lewis), Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine (featuring Dwayne Johnson's latest stab at drama), and two horror indie titles: Mercedes Bryce Morgan's Bone Lake and Ben Leonberg's Good Boy. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how everything shakes out at the box office.
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