Enough people RSVP’d and watched The Invitation to make the film take the top spot at the box office.

However, The Invitation’s $7 million ticket receipts made for the lowest-earning number one movie since May 2021’s Spiral.

With $53.7 million collected from all the movies in theaters, it was the lowest-earning weekend so far this summer.

A horror thriller, The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson, took its inspiration from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Nathalie Emmanuel, Thomas Doherty, Stephanie Corneliussen, Alana Boden, and Sean Pertwee star.

The story, written by Blair Butler, centers on a young woman, Evie, who meets the rest of her family for the first time since her mother’s death. Evie soon becomes involved in a gothic conspiracy.

Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train slowed down and took second place with $5.6 million. The David Leitch-directed action-comedy-thriller has collected $78.2 million so far in four weeks.

After taking in $4.9 million, Idris Elba’s Beast ranked third. Director Baltasar Kormakur’s survival thriller about a family being hunted by a massive rogue lion has accumulated $20.09 million after two weeks.

Remarkably still in the top five after 14 weeks is Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick. After earning another $4.75 million, the blockbuster has now amassed a domestic tally of $691.2 million. That figure makes it possible for Maverick to come closer to surpassing the late Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther as the fifth-highest all-time domestic hit.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero fell to the fifth spot after debuting at the top on the previous weekend. Director Tetsuro Kodama’s computer-generated martial arts fantasy/adventure anime, based on a very popular manga series created by Akira Toriyama, drew $4.544 million.

In two weeks, the Japanese production has taken in $30.76 million.

Making up the rest of the top ten were, in order: Jared Stern and Sam J. Levine’s animated DC League of Super-Pets, $4.225 million; George Miller’s debuting drama-fantasy-romance headlining Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, Three Thousand Year of Longing, $2.876 million; Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, $2.7 million ($336.5 million after eight weeks); and Olivia Newman’s Where the Crawdads Sing, $2.32 million.

Amid the North American box office doldrums, analysts are waiting to see if the first-ever National Cinema Day on September 3 will liven up the post-summer action.

On that Saturday, cinema tickets will be at $3 each on any title, showtime, and format (including IMAX). The major studios are participating in this one-day event that will span over 3,000 movie houses in the United States.

Overseas, The Invitation also opened softly with $1.6 million in almost 20 markets.

The big news was that those yellow gibberish-speaking pill-shaped creatures celebrated a milestone internationally. Their Minions: The Rise of Gru hit the $500 million benchmark. The minions have chattered their way to a global gross of $868.8 million.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero crossed the $50 million mark after earning $4.2 million in more than 30 markets. In Japan alone, the anime has amassed $18 million so far.

Another animation movie, Spain’s Tad the Lost Explorer and the Emerald Tablet, directed by Enrique Gato, bowed with $4.1 million in 15 territories.

Jordan Peele’s Nope opened in additional countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, to pick up $8.2 million for an international total of $31 million so far.

Bullet Train still has an ace up its sleeve – the action-comedy-thriller has yet to open on September 1 in Japan, where the film is set. As it is, the assassin-full action-comedy has grossed $95.4 million offshore.

Meanwhile,  box office pundits cite how Top Gun: Maverick, also starring Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, and Glen Powell, picked up another $6.7 million in over 60 offshore markets for a cumulative $731.2 million without the benefit of a release in China and Russia.