The winner of this week’s sorry session was the R-rated action comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds. It dropped 53%, earning an estimated $10 million and bringing its domestic total to $39.6 million. Do not be surprised if final totals put this week’s winner under the $10 million mark, which would make it the first movie in over two years not to break double digits and still win the box office. While it is no threat to Girls Trip, the hands down R-rated comedy hit of the summer with $103 million earned already, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which cost $30 million to produce, has overcome bad reviews (39% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes) and found favor with audiences.
A much bigger hit is this week’s #2 film, Annabelle: Creation, a prequel to a prequel in The Conjuring franchise, which has already earned $77.9 million here in North America, and $215 million worldwide against a cost of just $15 million. Director David F. Sanders, who made the 2016 horror hit Lights Out, and will helm Shazam for Warner Bros., has given Warners the “top horror film release of the summer title” to go along with the “top superhero film of the summer” (Wonder Woman), and the “top serious drama of the summer” (Dunkirk). While the summer hasn’t been kind to Hollywood overall, it has provided some much needed wins for Warner Bros., which had a rough 2016, and which, it should also be noted was responsible for the “biggest flop of the summer,” Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
The highest-grossing new film this week is the French Canadian animated film Leap! about an 11-year-old orphan girl (voiced by Elle Fanning) who dreams of becoming a ballerina in late 19th Century Paris. Leap! earned just $5 million from over 2,500 theaters and just a 37% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Opening weekend audiences liked the film better, giving it an “A” CinemaScore, but its prospects appear limited at best. With the exception of Despicable Me 3, which made $254 million, (though it should be mentioned that this was $100 million less in the domestic market than DM2), animated feature films (the gilt-edged golden genre of the early 21st Century) have lost much of their luster. Captain Underpants from Dreamworks, Cars 3 from Pixar, The Emoji Movie from Sony, have all been disappointments of varying degrees.
The fourth spot went to another Weinstein release, Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River, a gritty murder mystery set on an Indian reservation in Wyoming, which expanded from 600 theaters to over 2000 as it earned $4.4 million to bring its total to $9.8 million. Sheridan wrote last year’s gritty action hit Hell or High Water, and I wish I could report that classic action and caper films like Wind River and Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky, which finished at #5 were doing better, but right now it appears that both films will have difficulty doubling their modest production costs (Wind River cost $11 million, while Logan Lucky, which stars Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, and Adam Driver, cost $29 million). Logan Lucky, earned $4.4 million in its second frame to bring its domestic total to $15 million.
Sixth and seventh places went to a couple of films that have demonstrated great legs, Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk, which earned $3.9 million in its sixth weekend of release for a domestic total of $172.5 million and a worldwide haul of $412.2 million against a cost of $100 million, and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming, which brought in $2.75 million in its eighth weekend as it drove its North American total to $318.8 million and its global tally to $737 million.
Landing in eighth place was the micro-budgeted martial arts movie The Birth of the Dragon, which brought in $2.5 million from over 1,600 theaters. Attendance dropped 29% on Saturday, likely due to the Mayweather fight, though poor reviews (only 25% positive on RT) and a mediocre “B” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences don’t bode well for the film’s future.
Ninth place went to the Mayweather/McGregor fight, which was beamed into 481 theaters and earned $2.4 million as it posted the best per-theater average in the top ten ($4,990, its closest competitor was The Hitman’s Bodyguard at $2,976). Of course millions more watched the fight via pay-per-view at homes, restaurants, and bars.
Outside the top ten Wonder Woman had one final weekend in IMAX theaters and earned $1.7 million to bring its domestic total to $406.2 million. On Tuesday Patty Jenkins’ summer smash will be available for digital downloads, well in advance of its September 19 release on disc. Wonder Woman opened in Japan, its final territory, earning $3.4 million in its opening weekend and bringing the film’s global total to $806.2 million.
This is the spot where I usually tell readers to check back here next weekend to see how the new movies fare—except there are no real new releases planned for the Labor Day frame, just a re-release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind into 700 theaters (this past weekend James Cameron’s Terminator 2 was re-released in 3-D in 386 theaters and earned just $582K for a poor average of just $1,509—the easy availability of films on disk and on TV is making these re-releases of classics very problematic), and Weinstein Company’s insertion of the drama Tulip Fever into 600 theaters. The real suspense next weekend will revolve around whether or not Hollywood can avoid its worst Labor Day box office showing in decades.
