UPDATE: 2025-07-17 07:56 EST BY BRENNAN KLEIN

Dog Man Gets A $1 Million Boost, Companion Debuts In The Upper Bounds Of Its $8-$10 Million Range

This article was originally written Saturday AM and has been updated Sunday AM with up-to-date box office projections (in bold), a full chart, and further analysis.

Dog Manhas won the weekend with a record haul, butCompanionis also doing very well.Dog Man, which is a spinoff of the 2017 movieCaptain Underpantsbased on the Dav Pilkey graphic novel series of the same name, is the 50th feature film released by DreamWorks Animation. TheCompanionreleasekicked off on the same day, with the R-rated horror film starring Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, and Harvey Guillén targeting a very different audience.

PerVariety, as of Sunday morning,Dog Manis projected to take in a 3-day debut gross of$36 millionat the domestic box office, landing it at No. 1 on the chart for the weekend. This will give itthe second-best opening weekend for a January animated releasebehind 2016’sKung Fu Panda 3($41.8 million), which is also a DreamWorks title. It is the company’s third No. 1 debut in a row afterKung Fu Panda 4andThe Wild Robotand their 26th overall.

WhileCompanionis tracking much further behindDog Manwith a 3-day total of$9.3 millionlanding it at No. 2, this is a solid kickoff for the horror movie, which was produced byBarbarianwriter-director Zach Cregger. It only cost $10 million to make, soby the end of the weekend it will come close to earning back its budget. Below, see the full Top 5 chart for the domestic box office this weekend:

1

$36 million

$36 million (weekend 1)

2

$9.3 million

$9.3 million (weekend 1)

3

$6.6 million

$230 million (weekend 7)

4

$6.3 million

$34.7 million (weekend 3)

5

$5.3 million

$20.6 million (weekend 2)

The rest of the chart has seen a significant amount of movement, withMufasa: The Lion KingandOne of Them Daysboth being batted down one slot eachby the arrival of two new releases. Both had astoundingly narrow drops, with the former falling 23% and the latter drifting down just 21%, presumably buoyed by its 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and nearly matching 90% audience score.

Not so lucky is the Mark Wahlberg thrillerFlight Risk, which has a Rotten critic score of 26% and a just-barely Fresh audience score fo 63%. While its 53% drop is about par for the course for the star’s outings in the genre,it has fallen directly to No. 5 after debuting at No. 1the previous weekend. Meanwhile, two holdover hits have exited the chart to make way for the new releases, potentially for good.

Those titles would beSonic the Hedgehog 3, which fell from No. 4 to No. 6 with $3.2 million at a 39% drop, andMoana 2, which fell from No. 5 to No. 7 with $2.9 million at a 31% drop. The former hadpreviously been in the Top 5 for six straight weekends,while the latter had maintained a chart position for eight nonconsecutive weekends (it briefly fell to No. 6 during the 3-day weekend over the MLK Day holiday, though it was No. 5 for the 4-day weekend).

What This Means For Companion And Dog Man

Both Movies Have Bright Futures

TheDog Manreleaseis performing at roughly the same level asCompanion, because the movie comes with a budget of $40 million, a total to which its domestic debut has already drawn very close. Thus,both movies are seemingly on track to perform well at the box office, even though movies need to do more than just earn back their budget. Theaters generally keep half of ticket sales and publicity costs are not included in production budgets, so movies typically need to earn back two and a half times their price tags in order to break even in theaters.

This is the first weekend of the year when both the No. 1 and No. 2 movies have been 2025 releases.

By this rule of thumb,Dog Man’s break-even point can be estimated to be somewhere around $100 million, while the horror movie likely needs to earn about $25 million. Their debuts get them a great deal of the way there already, and audience reactions have shown that both are likely to build strong word of mouth and keep climbing.Companionreviewshave seen it earn a 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing to match its Certified Fresh 93% critic score, whileDog Manhas earned a similarly strong user rating of 88%.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

2025 Titles Are Finally Dominating

While theMufasa: The Lion Kingreleaseis still holding strong in the Top 5 and could continue to do so, the success ofCompanionandDog Manon the chart, as well as 2025 releases in general, show thatit is only a matter of time before no 2024 holdovers show up in the Top 5 at all. This could potentially happen as early as February 14, which sees the North American debut ofPaddington in Peruhit theaters opposite the new Marvel Cinematic Universe movieCaptain America: Brave New World.

Dog Man

Cast

Dog Man is a family film where a police dog and his officer are fused into one being after an accident. Now a half-canine hero, Dog Man balances his duties to protect the city and impress his Chief while facing off against the cunning feline villain, Petey the Cat.

Companion

Companion is an upcoming psychological thriller crafted by writer-director Drew Hancock.