F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton slipped just 55.5%, allaying fears that it could be as front-loaded as previous rap-based films like 8-Mile. Compton has now earned 111.5 million and should pass 8-Mile ($116 million) this week to become the highest-grossing rap film ever. With slim competition over the next few weeks, Compton could have a long box office reign.
Second place went to the Tom Cruise-starring Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, which fell just 31.9% in its fourth weekend as it earned $11.7 million to bring its domestic total to $157.8 million. With a worldwide total of $438.6 million (and several big markets yet to come), this franchise appears solid, especially since Rogue Nation appears to have a great shot to top $200 million domestically.
The horror sequel Sinister 2 was expected to earn about $15 million, but ended up with $10.6 million. Since this film was made for under $10 million, it should make a little money, though it doesn’t appear to have any hope of matching its 2012 predecessor’s worldwide total of $77.7 million, thanks to horrible (even for the genre) reviews (just 12% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes). Sinister 2’s audience was 51% female, and fairly young (with 43% under 25). Caucasians made up 42% of the opening weekend audience, which was 23% African-American, and 22% Hispanic.
Fox’s video game-based Hitman: Agent 47 attempted (unsuccessfully) to revive the Hitman franchise that was stillborn with the failure of the 2007 Hitman movie. What is it about video games? Hollywood has made great films from comic books, short stories, novels, advice to the lovelorn columns, radio shows, and all sorts of real life events, but video games have been a giant “Butterball” factory for Tinseltown, producing nothing more than chain of cinematic turkeys. Fox’s Agent 47 reboot earned just $8.2 million, compared with the 2007 film’s $21 million 5-day Thanksgiving opening. Right now it’s doubtful that Agent 47 will make it to $21 million by the end of its domestic run.
|
Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): August 21-23, 2015 |
||||||
|
Film |
Weekend Gross |
Screens |
Avg./Screen |
Total Gross |
Wk# |
|
|
1 |
Straight Outta Compton |
$26,760,000 |
3,025 |
$8,846 |
$111,483,000 |
2 |
|
2 |
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation |
$11,700,000 |
3,442 |
$3,399 |
$157,763,000 |
4 |
|
3 |
Sinister 2 |
$10,633,000 |
2,766 |
$3,844 |
$10,633,000 |
1 |
|
4 |
Hitman: Agent 47 |
$8,200,000 |
3,261 |
$2,515 |
$8,200,000 |
1 |
|
5 |
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. |
$7,420,000 |
3,673 |
$2,020 |
$26,637,000 |
2 |
|
6 |
American Ultra |
$5,500,000 |
2,778 |
$1,980 |
$5,500,000 |
1 |
|
7 |
The Gift |
$4,300,000 |
2,303 |
$1,867 |
$31,053,000 |
3 |
|
8 |
Ant-Man |
$4,088,000 |
2,016 |
$2,028 |
$164,524,000 |
6 |
|
9 |
Minions |
$3,710,000 |
2,226 |
$1,667 |
$319,965,000 |
7 |
|
10 |
Fantastic Four |
$3,650,000 |
2,581 |
$1,414 |
$49,625,000 |
3 |
Guy Ritchie’s spy spoof The Man From U.N.C.L.E., dropped 45% from its disappointing opening as it earned $7.4 million and brought its 10-day domestic total to $26.6 million. Overseas ticket sales are going to have to salvage this attempt to create yet another movie franchise based on a vintage TV series, and so far the film has earned just $26 million outside of North America.
Debuting in the sixth spot was the violent stoner comedy American Ultra, which stars Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg. American Ultra brought in just $5.5 million, but since Lionsgate acquired the movie for $9 million, there won’t be any big losses here, though any thought of American Ultra becoming some sort of a sleeper hit in theaters can be put to rest (though the movie does have a real shot at “cult film” status in the aftermarket).
Seventh place went to The Gift, another micro-budgeted horror type film from Blumhouse, who also gave us Sinister 2 this week. The Gift, which cost just $5 million to produce, has already earned $31 million domestically.
Marvel Studio’s Ant-Man, now in its sixth week in theaters, dropped 25.6% as it earned $4 million to bring its domestic total to $164.5 million. While Ant-Man has shown solid “legs,” it is clearly no Guardians of the Galaxy, and will end up well shy of the $200 million mark in North America.
Universal’s Minions ended up at #9 with estimated weekend earnings of $3.7 million, which drove the film’s domestic total to $320 million. Minions appears unlikely to catch Pixar’s Inside Out ($342.4 million) in the domestic market, but the little yellow google-eyed “Twinkies with tennis shoes” have now earned $989 million worldwide, and should top the $1 billion mark by next weekend.
“FF” does evidently stand for “fades fast” as Fox’s would-be reboot of the Fantastic Four slipped to #10 in just its third weekend. In 17 days of wide release the film has earned $49.6 million, which is still less than the debut totals of Fox’s two previous FF movies (and that’s without adjusting the totals of the earlier films for inflation). It is now abundantly clear that Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four is the biggest superhero film failure in a long time.
Be sure and check back here next week. The toy-based Max Steel movie was supposed to debut on this weekend, but was pushed back to the friendly confines of January, 2016, leaving the field wide open for the Owen Wilson action/thriller No Escape, the Zac Efron romance We Are Your Friends, and the faith-based War Room. See why analysts are picking Compton to three-peat?
