TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Battles Meg 2: The Trench For Second Place At The Box Office

If you thought the dance battles between the Sharks and the Jets in "West Side Story" were thrilling, how about a three-way battle between giant sharks, mutant turtles, and grim visions of apocalyptic doom wrought by mankind's hubris? Though "Barbie" is set to hold on to the No. 1 spot at the box office for the third weekend running, second place is a tight race between new releases "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and monster movie sequel "Meg 2: The Trench," and Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," which is also on its third weekend.

Per Deadline, Friday's numbers have all three movies heading for estimated weekend totals of around $29 million. However, the Friday numbers for "Meg 2" include $3.1 million in Thursday previews, so this is really more of a competition between "Oppenheimer" and "Mutant Mayhem." The new animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie opened on Wednesday, riding a wave of rave reviews (96 percent on Rotty T's!), and grossed $10.2 million on its opening day, including $3.85 million from Tuesday previews. For what it's worth, Paramount Pictures is betting on its own horse winning the race, with a slightly higher weekend estimate of $30 million for "Mutant Mayhem," and a projected 5-day gross of $45 million. Industry tracking, according to Variety, is predicting it will end Sunday with $42 million domestic.

While that might not sound huge compared to the dizzying heights of "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," which scored an opening weekend of $120.5 million, a $45 million debut would be a solid start for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem." A $29-30 million first weekend would match the opening of Pixar's "Elemental," but whereas that movie came with a hefty $200 million price tag, "Mutant Mayhem" was made for a pretty conservative $70 million. Add in the fact that animated, family-friendly movies have proven to be very leggy at the box office this year, and the kids have plenty of reasons to say, "cowabunga!"

The outlook is a little less sunny for "Meg 2: The Trench." Though director Ben Wheatley was determined to make every penny count, the sequel's reported $129 million budget still sets the break-even bar significantly higher than "Mutant Mayhem" or even "Oppenheimer" (which was budgeted at $100 million). That "Oppenheimer" is expected to gross as much in its third weekend as "Meg 2" is in its opening weekend is great news for the former, and slightly worrying news for the latter.

Domestic box office numbers only tell part of the story, though, and the good news for "Meg 2: The Trench" is that movies about Jason Statham punching giant prehistoric sharks in the face travel very well around the globe. The first "Meg" movie, released in 2018, grossed 72.6 percent of its mammoth $530 million worldwide total at the international box office (per Box Office Mojo), and ended up being a pretty sizable hit following a domestic debut of $45 million. If the sequel follows a similar trajectory, it should end up in the $350-400 million range.

Reviews for "The Meg" were mixed (personally I think it's very entertaining, and delivers pretty much everything you'd want from a movie about Jason Statham fighting a giant prehistoric shark), whereas reviews for "Meg 2: The Trench" lean more negative. Then again, this is the type of movie where bad reviews can be a selling point.