TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Oozes Past Meg 2: The Trench At The Box Office

Last weekend's box office top five was hotly-contested, with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," "Meg 2: The Trench," and "Oppenheimer" all vying for second place. "Meg 2" ultimately landed the No. 2 spot, with "Mutant Mayhem" settling at No. 4. It's worth noting that "The Trench" owed its victory to $3.2 million in Thursday previews that, per box office tradition, were counted as part of its Friday total. "Mutant Mayhem" released earlier in the week, and therefore only Friday-to-Sunday ticket sales were included in its weekend gross. But either way, it was a very tight race with only a $2 million difference in the three movies' totals.

Now in their second weekend of release, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and "Meg 2: The Trench" have swapped places and are starting to separate. "TMNT" is on track to drop just 48 percent this weekend, adding $14.6 million to its domestic gross and rising to third place on the charts, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, "Meg 2" is projected to fall 60 percent to $12.3 million — though again, Thursday previews being included in its opening weekend are a factor here. If you look at Friday-to-Sunday only, to get a like-for-like comparison with "Mutant Mayhem," the giant shark sequel is looking at a smaller drop of 54 percent.

Zooming out, the macro view here is that both films are holding decently in their sophomore weekend, with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" projected to finish Sunday with a running total of $72 million, and "Meg 2: The Trench" at around $53 million. That hold is likely thanks to the only new wide release this weekend, "The Last Voyage of the Demeter," tanking in its box office debut. Maybe the Megs conspired with Dracula to take it down.

The raw numbers for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" and "Meg 2: The Trench" may still be close, but the outlook for "Mutant Mayhem" is a lot sunnier thanks to its $70 million production budget, which is just over half of what "Meg 2" cost to make. The two Michael Bay-produced live-action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movies released in 2014 and 2016 also had Meg-sized budgets, so if we're measuring the success of "Mutant Mayhem" on the turtle scale, the best point of comparison is the 2007 animated movie "TMNT."

Written and directed by Kevin Munroe, "TMNT" had a production budget of $34 million, roughly equivalent to $50 million in 2023 dollars. It had a slightly stronger launch than "Mutant Mayhem" with an opening weekend gross of $24.2 million ($35.7 million, adjusted for inflation), but dropped steeply in its second weekend due to fresh competition from another animated family movie, "Meet the Robinsons." 

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" has an advantage there. The next big animated movie on the release slate is "Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie" on September 23, which is a long way off and targeting a younger audience. Both movies are rated PG, but the only warning for "Paw Patrol" is "mild action/peril," whereas "Mutant Mayhem" is rated PG for sequences of violence and action (aka molly-whopping), bad language (mostly from Superfly), and impolite material (big booty boy races and milking machines). Really, the wildest ninja stunt the turtle boys pulled this time around was somehow skating underneath a PG-13 label.