Space Jam: A New Legacy rocketed to the top spot and throttled Black Widow to second place in the domestic box office. Soaring with $31.65 million in earnings, Malcolm D. Lee’s live-action/animation hybrid, starring LeBron James, Don Cheadle and Cedric Joe, performed strongly due to a number of reasons, according to box office analysts.

The movie is succeeding reportedly because of the sports comedy’s appeal to families looking for kid-friendly content, the popularity of LeBron who is considered one of the best ever in NBA history, and nostalgia for the 1996 original which did not have a sequel until now.

The boffo numbers for A New Legacy, which was predicted to earn only $20 million and surged past that amount, were remarkable because the sequel is also streaming at no extra charge to HBO Max subscribers.

In a huge drop from its opening weekend figures, Cate Shortland’s Black Widow collected $26.3 million. Box office news stories touted the earnings decline as the steepest second-weekend drop ever for an MCU movie released by Disney.

Adam Robitel’s Escape Room: Tournament of Champions debuted at number three. The psychological horror film, the sequel to 2019’s Escape Room, mustered $8.8 million. The suspense genre film stars Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Indya Moore, Holland Roden, Thomas Cocquerel, and Carlito Olivero.

Justin Lin’s F9 stayed in the top five-lane with $7.6 million, which was good for a fourth-place finish in the recent weekend. Ranked fifth was Tom McGrath’s The Boss Baby: Family Business, with $4.7 million.

Completing the magic 10 were, in this order: Everardo Gout’s The Forever Purge ($4.1 million), John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place Part II ($2.3 million), Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain ($1.9 million), Craig Gillespie’s Cruella ($1.1 million) and Michael Sarnoski’s Pig ($945,000).

Worth noting were the eighth spot finish of Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, which marks the largest figures for a documentary in 2021, and the promising start of Nicolas Cage’s acclaimed Pig, an indie thriller about a truffle hunter who searches for his kidnapped foraging pig.

In the international box office race, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow garnered $29.9 million, mainly from France, United Kingdom and Korea.

F9 has earned $436.43 million so far in the overseas market, after taking in $28.65 million the last weekend. Space Jam: A New Legacy opened on top in Mexico and Australia and helped its offshore ticket sales reach $23.01 million.

The Croods: A New Age, the pandemic’s surprise hit, is still stirring buzz offshore with $6.42 million. Joel Crawford’s animation adventure-comedy, which also stars Nicolas Cage as the voice of Grug, has now amassed a total of $132.68 million internationally.

In the streaming race, Nielsen reported that on the week when Manifest was canceled by NBC after three seasons, it topped the SVOD ratings chart.

It was an ironic triumph for creator Jeff Rake’s drama, featuring Melissa Roxburgh, Josh Dallas, and Athena Karkanis, about the crew and passengers of a commercial jet who suddenly reappear after missing and being presumed dead for over five years.

Netflix again dominated the list of the most streamed shows (non-Netflix programs are identified) for the week of June 14 to 20, in this order: Manifest, Luca (Disney Plus), Downton Abbey, Loki (Disney Plus), Fatherhood, CoComelon, Lucifer, Grey’s Anatomy, Sweet Tooth, and Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney Plus).