Even before this past weekend’s box office debacle the summer of 2017 was running 9% behind last year’s total in spite of the fact that the studios produced more expensive “event” films for this year’s summer session than in 2016. Now the box office is about 10% down vis a vis last year, and nothing due out next week looks like it will come anywhere close to the smashing $133.7 million August debut of Suicide Squad.
One thing you can say about Sony’s The Dark Tower is that the film wasn’t one of those expensive overstuffed “tentpoles.” It was made for just $60 million dollars, so the studio is not going to have one of those $150 million losses like Warner Bros. suffered with Guy Ritchie’s ill-fated King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. However the debut of The Dark Tower does bring up the question, if you are going to kick off a major multi-media franchise, do you really want to do it on the cheap? With only an 18% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and lots of nasty online comments from fans of King’s novels, it is hard to see how this debut doesn’t spell the end of at least the movie aspect of the Dark Tower franchise (but that doesn’t mean that the property couldn’t flourish in the expanding world of cable and streaming shows---plenty of mediocre films have spawned great TV series if put in the right hands, look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Opening weekend audiences for The Dark Tower skewed male (58%) and older with 68% over the age of 25, and they gave the film a mediocre “B” CinemaScore. The next few weeks will be crucial if the film is to make it over the $50 million range here in North America. While that does appear likely, it is not a given, and while it would keep studio losses low, or non-existent if the film takes off overseas, it is just hard to see The Dark Tower continuing as a film franchise.
After two weeks at #1, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk dropped just 33.9% in its third frame as it earned $17.6 million to bring its North American total to $133.6 million. Dunkirk has made nearly $30 million of that total in IMAX theaters (a great way to see this extremely well photographed film). A $200 million domestic total is not out of the question for Dunkirk, which has already earned $314 million worldwide against a production cost of $100 million.
Sony may have headaches with The Dark Tower, but there is better news for another poorly review Sony production, The Emoji Movie, which dropped just 50% in its second frame, earning $12.5 million for a ten-day total of nearly $50 million.
|
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): August 4-6, 2017 |
||||||
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
|
1 |
The Dark Tower |
$19,500,000 |
3,451 |
$5,651 |
$19,500,000 |
1 |
|
2 |
Dunkirk |
$17,600,000 |
4,014 |
$4,385 |
$133,555,738 |
3 |
|
3 |
The Emoji Movie |
$12,350,000 |
4,075 |
$3,031 |
$49,451,704 |
2 |
|
4 |
Girls Trip |
$11,418,700 |
2,582 |
$4,422 |
$85,443,720 |
3 |
|
5 |
Kidnap |
$10,210,000 |
2,378 |
$4,294 |
$10,210,000 |
1 |
|
6 |
Spider-Man: Homecoming |
$8,800,000 |
3,116 |
$2,824 |
$294,907,776 |
5 |
|
7 |
Atomic Blonde |
$8,244,930 |
3,326 |
$2,479 |
$34,125,305 |
2 |
|
8 |
Detroit |
$7,251,000 |
3,007 |
$2,411 |
$7,766,482 |
2 |
|
9 |
War for the Planet of the Apes |
$6,000,000 |
2,704 |
$2,219 |
$130,280,255 |
4 |
|
10 |
Despicable Me 3 |
$5,288,640 |
2,445 |
$2,163 |
$240,779,550 |
6 |
The good news continues for the #4 film, Universal’s Girls Trip, which dropped just 41.9% as it earned $11.4 million to bring its domestic cumulative to $85.4 million. Girls Trip is the hands down winner among R-rated comedies this summer, and the only one that will end up earning over $100 million in North America.
All three movies that opened “wide” this weekend featured African-American leads, which may be some sort of a record. The one film out of the trio that actually beat expectations was the modest thriller Kidnap, which stars Halle Berry, and which opened well above most analysts’ predictions with $10.2 million. Audiences for Kidnap skewed heavily female (63%) and older with 73% over the age of 25.
Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming continues to show good “legs,” dropping just 33.6% and adding $8.8 million to bring its domestic total to $295 million. By this time next week Homecoming should be over the $300 million mark, only the fourth film of 2017 to hit that mark so far.
The seventh spot went to the Charlize Theron-starring, comic book-based, action thriller Atomic Blonde, which tumbled 55% in its second frame as it earned $8.2 million to bring its North American total to $34.1 million.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit expanded from just 20 theaters to over 3000, but this grim real life historical drama earned just $7.3 million, which was less than half what most analysts were predicting for this well reviewed (88% positive on RT) film. Forty-one percent of the film’s audience was Caucasian, while African-Americans made up 37%, with Hispanics accounting for 14%, and Asians 8%. The crowds skewed slightly female (52%), and they gave the film a good “A-“ CinemaScore.
Detroit is a film with Oscar potential, and, given critical and audience reaction, could generate some legs, though its grim historical subject matter is unfortunately something that lots of Americans appear to want to forget.
Be sure to check back here next week. The pace of releases has slowed, but next weekend will see the wide release of the next film in the Conjuring franchise, Annabelle: Creation, which, given the current state of the box office, might just have a chance to win.
