The “Dragon Ball” franchise has become a great boon for North America’s multiplexes, delivering steady results when there’s no non-anime comic book movie blockbuster around to sell the popcorn.

“Dragon Ball Super: Superhero” had a good Thursday night ($4 million) and a decent-enough Friday to point to an opening weekend in the $17-20 million range. (updated — $20 it is). Whatever the reviews, these films usually do very good business for a week or two, and that should tide cinemas over until the Films of Fall start rolling out in early Sept.

Its distributor, Crunchyroll, can pop a few champagne corks for brunch.

That is, provided “3000 Years of Longing” doesn’t finish the summer with a bang when it opens next weekend. That seems like a hard sell.

Idris Elba’s big picture THIS weekend is “Beast,” the family fights off animated lions action pic/horror movie. Middling reviews aren’t helping, and Elba’s still not big box office so $11.5 million is all we can expect from “Beast.”

“Bullet Train” is falling off another 40% this weekend, taking in $8 million.

“Top Gun: Maverick” should be surrendering the screens it reclaimed last weekend and slims down to $5.8, putting it just ahead of the still-hanging-on “DC’s League of Super Pets” animated outing ($5.7). It’s now the sixth highest grossing US release ever, according to Exhibitor Relations.

“Thor: Love & Thunder” cleared another $4, over $332 in North America now. Not bad for a Marvel “bomb.”

“Where the Crawdads Sing” is living up to that older, whiter, rural book-reading audience MO by sticking around as folks “get around” to it. It earned another $3.1 million and will be over $80 million before next weekend.

“Bodies Bodies Bodies” added theaters theaters theaters, and still fell off, only pulling in $2.4.

“Orphan: First Kill” is in a few theaters and streaming at the same time, so it only earned $1.6 million this weekend. Might’ve done better in wider release with streaming delayed until Sept. 1. Probably not.

“Fall” managed another $1 million. Not a bad movie, but a bust.