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Warner Bros. Makes Box Office History After 7 Movies Open Above $40 Million
Talk about a scary-good box office streak.
“The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which scored a franchise-best launch of $83 million domestically and $187 million globally over the weekend, has extended an epic theatrical run for Warner Bros. as the seventh consecutive release to open above $40 million. No other studio has ever achieved that level of consistency at the box office.
After a terrible theatrical stretch with duds like 2024’s “Joker: Folie a Deux” and this March’s “Mickey 17” and “The Alto Knights,” the fortunes at Warner Bros. began to rebound with April’s video game adaptation “A Minecraft Movie” ($162 million debut). The studio’s turnaround continued with Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan’s vampire thriller “Sinners” ($48 million), followed by a quartet of summer offerings, “Final Destination Bloodlines” ($51.6 million), Brad Pitt’s “F1: The Movie” ($57 million), “Superman” ($125 million) and director Zach Cregger’s horror mystery “Weapons” ($43.5 million).
What’s even better is that all of those films managed to stick around beyond opening weekend, a fate that several major releases recently failed to achieve. (Disney’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Thunderbolts,” for example, dropped steeply after promising debuts.) “A Minecraft Movie” is the studio’s biggest earner of the year with $957 million globally, followed by “F1” (which Warner Bros. distributed for Apple) with $617 million, “Superman” with $613 million, “Sinners” with $366 million, “Final Destination: Bloodlines” with $307 million and “Weapons” with $251 million and counting.
“Warner Bros. is having a fantastic run,” says analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “The studio made outstanding choices and took some big creative risks, and they’re paying off.”
Back in the spring, Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi epic “Mickey 17” with Robert Pattinson, as well as the Robert De Niro-led crime drama “The Alto Knights,” had set the studio back at least $110 million in losses. But the remaining lineup has delivered some enviable profit margins. Case in point: “Sinners” is expected to generate around $60 million in theatrical profits; “Superman” around $125 million; “Final Destination: Bloodlines” approximately $75 million; “Weapons” around $65 million (and counting), according to knowledgeable individuals. For “F1,” Warner Bros. was paid a flat distribution fee as well as a percentage of revenues in line with certain box office benchmarks, resulting in theatrical profits of roughly $34 million. Warner Bros. declined to comment. A studio insider disputed these figures without providing specific numbers; the source added that Warner Bros. has made roughly $600 million in combined year-to-date theatrical profits before counting the latest “Conjuring.”
Thanks to the dramatic turnaround, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy are fully off the hot seat. That wasn’t the case a few months ago, given the studio’s late 2024 and early 2025 run of box office disasters. Right before De Luca and Abdy had to grapple with a steady stream of headlines about whether or not they would keep their jobs, the duo ousted the studio’s marketing chief, Josh Goldstine, and international distribution head Andrew Cripps. The surprise shakeup contributed to a growing sense of uncertainty at the studio.
“Studios get hot, and studios get cold,” Gross adds. “Just before this, they weathered a long, bad run. It won’t last forever. Hopefully they’ll remember this [run] when they go on a cold steak. That’ll happen too; it always does.”
Those outsized wins will take a bit of pressure off the next big Warner Bros. gamble, Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic “One Battle After Another,” which opens later in September. That film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, cost at least $130 million to produce and requires roughly $300 million to break even at the box office. For context, Anderson’s highest-grossing film is 2007’s Western “There Will Be Blood,” which earned $76.4 million globally.
“One Battle After Another” will be the studio’s final release of the year. Then in 2026, Warner Bros. will deliver Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” remake with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s $80 million “Frankenstein” spinoff “The Bride” and two DC’s adventures in “Supergirl” and “Clayface.” There’s also Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor-led original sci-fi thriller “Flowervale Street,” video game sequel “Mortal Kombat II,” an untitled film from “Birdman” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and star Tom Cruise, and “Dune Part Three.” On paper, it looks like another risky slate that spotlights genre fare and filmmaker-driven originals over time-tested franchises. But then again, most of the studio’s 2025 slate didn’t enter theaters as guaranteed hits. And we know how those bets paid off.
Conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk died Wednesday after he was shot at an event at Utah Valley University. He was 31 years old.
A suspect has not been identified, and state authorities said Wednesday evening a “manhunt” for the shooter is still in progress. Two people who were taken into custody earlier were not tied to the shooting and were later released.
Utah Valley University police said they were going “building to building” to evacuate people.
President Trump posted on Truth Social: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”
Kirk was participating in an event at the Orem, Utah, school as part of his organization’s “The American Comeback Tour” when he was attacked.
The university said in a statement shared to social media that a shot was fired at Kirk shortly after 12 p.m. local time, and he was hit. A single shot was fired, two law enforcement sources told CBS News.
Video of the incident showed Kirk speaking to a large crowd at an outdoor “Prove Me Wrong” debate, where he invites students to challenge his political and cultural views, when the shot rings out.
Elected officials on both sides of the aisle had swiftly condemned the attack on Kirk and denounced acts of political violence.
NEW YORK — Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday, according to wealth tracker Bloomberg, as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading.
A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years running. Stock in one of Musk’s biggest holdings, Tesla, has been moving in the opposite direction of Oracle’s, dropping 14% so far this year as of Tuesday.
The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle powered by multibillion dollar orders from customers as the AI race heats up.
Another news organization with a long history of tallying the world’s richest, Forbes, still has Musk at the top, at $439 billion. Bloomberg put his net worth at $385 billion. The difference is in how the two estimate the value of Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, among other private holdings.
With Ellison’s surging fortune Wednesday, he could fund the lifestyles of 5 million American families for a year, about the entire population of Florida, allowing them to all quit their jobs, assuming the U.S. median household income.
Or Ellison could just tell all of South Africa to take a vacation for year and produce nothing, based on its gross domestic product.
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Shooting at Evergreen High School leaves three students with gunshot wounds, including the suspected shooter
Updated at 6:53 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025
A shooting at Evergreen High School this afternoon hospitalized four students — three with gunshot wounds, including the suspected shooter.
The students with gunshot wounds were treated at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. After treatment, two of the three — one being the suspect — are still in critical condition.
The third victim has non-life-threatening injuries.
The sheriff’s office confirmed in an evening update that the suspected shooter sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Officials said a fourth juvenile took themselves to the hospital with injuries sustained while escaping the high school and fleeing to a nearby elementary school.
“This is the scariest thing you could ever think could happen,” said Jacki Kelley, public information officer with Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “Honestly, I don’t know if our suspect is old enough to even drive.”
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Kelley said it was not clear who the shooter was or how many shooters may have been involved. Over 100 police officers from around the Denver area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said.
Officials said the shooter used a handgun and that police have not found a letter explaining the attack. Kelley said it appeared the shooting happened on school grounds, but outside the school.
The school is about 28 miles southwest of Denver. It enrolls about 900 students, according to the state Department of Education.
Tony Gorman/CPR News
Cameron Jones is a 9th grader at Evergreen High School. He said he was eating lunch outside when he heard three gunshots. A security guard then told him to run.
He said he never thought a shooting like Wednesday’s would happen in Evergreen.
“Absolutely not,” Jones said. “I thought this was like a one-in-a-million thing, and it still feels surreal that it happened.”
Jen Weber, a mother of a freshman student at the school, said she was washing her car when her son sent her a text message that a shooting was happening.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
“I think if I’m being honest with myself, I always knew it was ‘When, not if?’” Weber said. “But having been born and raised in Evergreen, I didn’t ever really think it would happen here in Evergreen.”
Weber was still waiting on Wednesday afternoon to be reunited with her son.
Authorities have not released more details on the shooting. Videos on social media show emergency service vehicles racing towards the school.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
“I am closely monitoring the situation at Evergreen High School, and am getting live updates. State Troopers are supporting local law enforcement in responding to this situation. Students should be able to attend school safely and without fear across our state and nation. We are all praying for the victims and the entire community,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
Federal law enforcement is also responding to the scene to assist.
Allison Sherry/CPR News
Parents are being asked to go to Bergen Meadow Elementary School at 1928 Hiwan Drive to reunify with their students.
Outside the school on Wednesday afternoon, a long line of parents waited to be reunited with their students.
Flatirons Community Church in Golden was planning a vigil on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The Jefferson County Education Association, a teachers’ union in the district, said in a statement that every time a school shooting happens, it retraumatizes the community that lived through the Columbine shooting in 1999.
“Colorado has lived through this pain too many times. We cannot become numb. We cannot accept this as normal. We demand that our leaders at every level — local, state, and national — take real, meaningful action to end the epidemic of gun violence in our schools,” the association’s leaders said in a statement.
All Jefferson County school athletics and activities for Wednesday were canceled.
CPR reporters Haylee May, Alejandro A. Alonso Galva, Yesenia Robles, Molly Cruse, Kevin Beaty, Ben Markus, Allison Sherry and Tony Gorman, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with more information about the victims and the alleged shooter.
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