Mortal Kombat II opened Friday at $17 million, including $5.2 million from previews and IMAX, in 3,503 theaters. The Devil Wears Prada 2 took $9.8 million on its second Friday. Industry trackers project Mortal Kombat II to land near $41 million for the weekend, with Prada 2 in the same neighborhood by Sunday after a Mother's Day boost. [1] [2] The race is a tighter-than-headline contest between a Karl Urban-anchored Johnny Cage debut and a legacy sequel running ahead of its original at every milestone.

The interesting picture is not the winner. It is Prada 2. Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep have walked the second weekend at numbers that compound to a domestic total approaching $141 million. The 2006 original grossed $124 million domestically over its full theatrical run. Prada 2 is on pace to clear that before Memorial Day. Legacy sequels usually arrive late and limp; this one is acting like a current franchise. [1]

Mortal Kombat II carries an $80 million budget — up from $55 million on the 2021 original — with director Simon McQuoid and screenwriter Jeremy Slater returning. Karl Urban's Johnny Cage is the casting that justified the swing. The 74 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is the audience permission slip the first film did not earn. [3]

Mother's Day is the cited swing factor. Sunday matinees of mothers and daughters are a different audience from Friday-night Mortal Kombat crowds. [3] By Monday, the box office report will name a winner. The more durable read is that the multiplex still has room for two IP plays opening into the same weekend, and that one of them is a 20-year-old Hathaway-Streep movie nobody asked Hollywood to remake. The audience asked for it after the studio made it.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles