Dunkirk’s small second weekend drop is a strong indicator of box office staying power, which should be sustained by the film’s strong appeal to older viewers, who traditionally don’t rush out to mingle with the opening weekend crowds. With a 10-day total of $102 million, Dunkirk appears well-positioned to continue its solid run unless The Dark Tower unexpectedly proves to be huge late summer hit. With a cast that is devoid of big name stars, credit for the success of Dunkirk flows directly to Nolan, and the bigger a hit the $100 million production becomes, the more likely that Nolan will be able to continue to make the films he wants free of interference.
The critics have definitely piled on The Emoji Movie, which currently has only an 8% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The film has become a convenient scapegoat for all the things that people don’t like about social media, which has led to a bit of overkill. When dealing with films filled with the bathroom humor that appeal to younger children, there is often a disconnect between what the critics like and what audiences will enjoy—and the relatively strong $25 million debut of The Emoji Movie testifies to the fact that lots of kids were looking forward to seeing (and hearing) the “Poop Emoji” played by Sir Patrick Stewart. Alas opening weekend audiences gave the film a lousy “B” CinemaScore (a very low grade for an animated film), which means that we may not have The Emoji Movie to kick around much longer.
The $25.7 million opening of The Emoji Movie was very close to that of Captain Underpants, which like The Emoji Movie was produced for around $30 million. Captain Underpants, which received a “B+” CinemaScore, ended its domestic run with about $72 million, which would appear to be the top end of expectations for The Emoji Movie in the domestic market. Opening weekend audiences for The Emoji Movie skewed female (52%) with 65% of the crowd under 25.
Do those CinemaScores matter? Yes in some cases, especially when a film gets the coveted “A+” grade (remember The Blindside?). The latest case in point is the R-rated ensemble comedy Girls Trip, which debuted above expectations last week, and dropped just 35.6% in its second frame earning $20 million and bringing its 10-day total to $65.5 million (versus a production cost of just $19 million). Girls Trip, which stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah, has proven to be, as we suggested here last week, the breakout comedy hit of the summer, a feel-good saga that doesn’t punish its protagonists like the unsuccessful Rough Night did.
The unexpected success of Wonder Woman as well as the previous box office victories scored by Angelina Jolie in Salt, and Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, probably set expectations too high for another saga featuring a “kick-ass female hero,” Atomic Blonde, which stars Charlize Theron, whose badass performance in last year’s Mad Max reboot was a key part of that film’s success. Though made on a much smaller scale, Atomic Blonde has the virtue of being directed by ex-stuntman David Leitch, whose two John Wick films have pretty much set the standard for contemporary “action” films.
Atomic Blonde, which is based on Oni Press graphic novel The Coldest City, is a period espionage saga that takes place in Berlin, and which features some of the best-staged action set pieces in any American film in years. The good news is that Atomic Blonde did attract a more gender-balanced audience than the typical bloody modern action film, skewing only slightly male (51%), and that, in spite of its “R” rating, 38% of the crowd was under 25. The bad news is that opening weekend audiences gave the film only a “B” CinemaScore—now that is not as bad a mark for an action film or a horror movie as it is for an animated feature (whose younger viewers are typically more generous in their grading), but it is not a good sign either. The critics, who almost universally single out Charlize Theron for her performance, liked the film better than audiences did, giving Atomic Blonde a solid 75% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
After a precipitous second weekend drop (for a Marvel Studios film), Spider-Man: Homecoming has stabilized, dropping just 39.3% in its fourth frame as it added $13.5 million to bring its domestic total to $278.3 million. Overseas Homecoming is doing even better, having earned $355.4 million so far for a global total of $633.7 million with openings in China and Japan still to come. Domestically Homecoming should climb past the $300 million mark and likely become the #3 film of the summer, trailing only Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2. Will the summer of 2017 be regarded as the high point for superhero films in Hollywood? Will this dominance continue, or will Jurassic World 2 and the Han Solo Star Wars spin-off dominate the summer of 2018 box office at the expense of Deadpool 2, Avengers: Infinity World, and The Incredibles 2?
Sixth place went to Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes, which dropped 50% in its third frame as it earned $10.4 million to bring its current domestic total to $118.7 million. Matt Reeves War for POTA is a powerful, well-made film that is simply the casualty of an overly crowded marketplace. It deserved a better fate, but unless it does a lot more business overseas than it has so far, it may well spell the end for the current “motion capture-based” revival of the POTA franchise.
Even though Despicable Me 3 hasn’t done nearly as well here as Minions, the Illumination Entertainment animated feature is absolutely crushing it overseas, where it has made $588 million. In fact Despicable Me 3 will likely end up as the #1 film of the summer outside of the U.S.
Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is yet another victim of the crowded summer marketplace. A late Q1 or early Q2 launch might have helped this visually stunning film get the attention it deserves instead of suffering the ignominy of a 60% second weekend drop from a disappointing debut. Comic book-based films like Valerian and Atomic Blonde, which don’t involve superheroes have a much more mixed track record than that of the spandex crowd—a fact that is not lost Hollywood studios, which are always looking for the “sure thing.”
There is fortunately better news about Edgar Wright’s music-infused heist film Baby Driver, the hipster action hit of the summer, which dropped just 33.3% in its fifth weekend as it earned $4 million to bring its domestic total to $92 million. It may just eke over the line, but a $100 million North American run is still a strong possibility for the modestly-budgeted ($34 million) action movie.
Speaking of success stories from the summer of 2017, the biggest one is Patty jenkins’ Wonder Woman, which spent its ninth straight weekend on the list as it dropped just 23.2% while it added $3.5 million to bring its summer of 2017-leading domestic total to $395.5 million. It is a given that Wonder Woman will now pass the $400 million mark. It is just a question of how far past $400 million the film will go. While it hasn’t been quite as dominant overseas, Wonder Woman’s global total of $785 million is now ahead of Deadpool’s $783 million haul (of course the Merc with a Mouth did his damage in spite of an “R” rating, and without the benefit of either revenue-generating 3-D, or a run in the world’s second biggest market, China).
Two reality-based films had limited openings this week prior to going wider in the coming month. Katherine Bigelow’s docudrama Detroit, which is based on the Algiers Motel Incident that occurred during the 12th Street Riot in 1967. Opening in 20 theaters in urban markets, Detroit managed a solid $18,273 per venue average.
Opening just four theaters, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel managed a $32,000 average, a superb number for a straight documentary, which sounds great until it is compared with the $70K average that Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth snared eleven years ago when global climate change was not a matter of partisan debate.
Be sure to check back here next week to see what happens when the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower opens in over 3,200 theaters and the action film Kidnap, which stars Halle Berry, will debut in over 2,200 locations.