Disclosure Day roars to a $40 million-plus opening as Masters of the Universe stumbles

If you had Steven Spielberg dropping an original film into cinemas smack in the middle of 'sequel exhaustion' season, and you fancied a wager on how it'd do, pat yourself on the back: everyone was basically right. Spielberg's latest, 'Disclosure Day', is on track to pull in a tidy $43–44 million for its opening weekend, according to Deadline. That lands pretty much spot-on where folks were eyeing it earlier in the week – we were tipping $40 million, and it's charmingly within spitting distance. Not exactly 'king of the multiplex', but for something that's not squeezed out of a Marvel or Star Wars pipeline, it's a solid win.

How Does 'Disclosure Day' Stack Up for Spielberg?

If you're keeping score at home, and you probably are if you're reading this, 'Disclosure Day' is Spielberg's fourth-best opening ever, without monkeying about with inflation. Here's the quick rundown for the curious:

• 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull': $72.1 million (still the champ)
• 'War of the Worlds': $64.8 million
• 'Jurassic Park': $50.8 million (all the way back in 1993, mind)
• 'Disclosure Day': $43–44 million (expected)

Yes, before anyone gets out a calculator, 'Ready Player One' did $41 million on its opening weekend, so technically, 'Disclosure Day' edges that out — though if you bother to adjust for inflation, 'Ready Player One' still comes out on top by a fair bit.

Audience Scores: Not Quite a Hit

Here's the odd bit: while box office is decent, the audience response is...well, tepid for Spielberg. 'Disclosure Day' scored a CinemaScore of just B. That's on the soft side for him. To put it in perspective, 'Masters of the Universe' got the same B last weekend, and is now in free fall — it's projected to swallow a brutal 69% drop this week and claw out a mere $9.2 million. Woeful stuff.

The Rest of the Box Office Crowd

Moving on to the rest of the field, and a bit of reshuffling is underway:

'Obsession' has elbowed 'Scary Movie' aside for the number two slot, expected to make $21 million this weekend for a domestic haul totalling $190 million. With those numbers, it's now out-earned 'Get Out', and if it keeps up this pace, it might even threaten 'The Sixth Sense' at $293 million domestic — that is, if you're not adjusting for inflation, which apparently no one is this season.

As you'd anticipate, 'Scary Movie' is what they call 'front-loaded'. It's plummeting by over 70% this weekend, only managing another $14.6 million. Still, that's $84 million in total — not exactly pocket change.

Slightly further down the leaderboard is 'Backrooms', pulling in $12 million this weekend and already sitting pretty with a surprising $160 million total so far.

And a quick shout to my pick of the lot — 'The Furious' — which is landing around $3 million but on just 1,250 screens. That's not blockbuster territory, but believe me, it's a cracking watch and deserves way more.