‘Gran Turismo’ on Track to Take Over Top Spot at Domestic Box Office, ‘Barbie’ Close in Second

After riding high on the "Barbenheimer" sensation the last month and a half, the weekly box office numbers have returned to Earth.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie held steady in second place after it was dethroned by Blue Beetle, the latest Warner Bros. superhero romp, last weekend.

However, this weekend, the racing movie Gran Turismo is on track to take the top spot at the domestic box office with a projected $17.3 million haul.

Blue Beetle was relegated to third place after making a projected $12.8 million at the domestic box office behind Barbie’s $17.1 million.

Christopher Nolan’s moody historical epic Oppenheimer was fourth with $9 million, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem came in fifth with $6.1 million.

Gran Turismo, the racing film loosely based on the true story of video gamers who compete in a real-life race car competition, was supposed to debut on Aug. 11 in the United States, but was delayed because of strikes by actors' and writers' unions and opened Friday.

The film had a meager-by-comparison budget of $60 million — compared to the reported $145 million budget for Barbie and $100 million for Oppenheimer — and has so far raked in more than $53 million worldwide, putting on pace to earn a profit despite less-than-enthusiastic reviews and a cast barred from promoting the film due to the strikes.

Gran Turismo’s modest opening weekend signals that the U.S. box office has fallen from the dizzying heights of the Barbie and Oppenheimer duel release on July 9. Those films made a combined $235 million in the U.S. on their opening weekends and marked a high point in an otherwise lackluster summer movie season.