Inexpensive Jackass Installment Opens on Top

Big-budget Moonfall trails on its debut weekend
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 6, 2022 12:00 PM CST
Jackass Forever Has Opening Laugh
Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson in a scene from "Moonfall."   (Reiner Bajo/Lionsgate via AP)

Not even a global pandemic or a 12-year hiatus could stop the Jackass guys at the box office. Jackass Forever, the fourth movie in the anarchic series, earned $23.5 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. It not only exceeded expectations but also easily bested its other main competitors, the big budget sci-fi spectacle Moonfall and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has spent six of its eight weeks in theaters at No. 1. Jackass Forever brings back Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and Wee Man for another round of pranks, stunts, and injuries, and has become the best-reviewed in the series.

Playing on 3,604 screens in North America, Jackass Forever is on the lower end of Jackass openings, above only the first, which made $22.8 million in its opening weekend in 2002. The biggest opening of the series was the one before this; Jackass 3D debuted at $50 million in 2010. But with a production cost of only $10 million, Jackass Forever is already a clear success for Paramount. The studio was predicting a launch in the mid-teens. Men accounted for 68% of the R-rated Jackass Forever audience, which was 67% between the ages of 18 and 34.

Moonfall, meanwhile, which cost around $140 million to produce, is not doing well stateside. Lionsgate estimated the film's opening weekend grosses to be just over $10 million, which was in line with its projections. Directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, Moonfall was not well-received by critics. The disaster pic about a possible collision between the moon and the Earth holds a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. Spider-Man: No Way Home took in an additional $9.6 million in its eighth weekend in North American theaters, bringing its domestic total to $748.9 million. Globally, its earnings total $1.77 billion.

(More box office stories.)

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