Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a massive audience out there for R-rated movies rooted in real-world history that run for three hours, but it would be ridiculous to expect Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon to come close.
For one thing, Nolan’s cultural phenomenon had the benefit of riding the Barbenheimer craze to reach untold heights at the box office, with a total haul of close to $950 million nothing short of mind-blowing. Scorsese has been in the game far longer, and has made even more classics than his peer, but there was no chance his acclaimed drama would fly anywhere near as high.
That being said, Killers of the Flower Moon has slightly over-performed compared to those initial projections that pegged it somewhere around the $20 million mark, with the showcase for Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio scoring a solid $23 million out of the gate, even if it was nowhere near enough to topple the unstoppable Taylor Swift after The Eras Tour enjoyed a second frame of $32 million.
If you want to compare it to the bushy-browed icon’s nemeses over at Marvel, then it’s ever-so-slightly ahead of the $22 million pulled in by the wretched Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance back in 2012, which ended up as one of the comic book powerhouse’s worst-reviewed features regardless of studio.
It may not recoup its massive $200 million budget, but Killers of the Flower Moon has gotten off to a decent start.
