In a soft weekend, awards-bait ‘Straight Outta Compton’ straight up ruled for a second week. Despite a 56% drop off, the NWA biopic held on to the #1 spot. The month-old ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ continues to dominate in a market lacking in summer action fare, remaining at #2. That means that the few movies to actually open this weekend landed behind these two veterans. Poorly reviewed horror movie ‘Insidious 2’ only managed to scare up a #3 ranking, while video game-based ‘Hitman: Agent 47’ didn’t exactly manage a high score, coming in at #4.
More after the numbers:
- Straight Outta Compton (Universal) – $26,756,125
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (Paramount) – $11,700,000
- Sinister 2 (Focus Features) – $10,633,000
- Hitman: Agent 47 (20th Century Fox) – $8,200,000
- The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Warner Brothers) – $7,420,000
‘Sinister 2’ was expected to do between $15-18M, but only managed $10.6, while ‘Hitman: Agent 47’ did better than predicted, but just barely, squeaking past the $8.1M it was expected to do. It still came in well behind the first ‘Hitman’ which opened to $13M in 2007.
Warner Brothers’ franchise-wannabe ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ hasn’t gotten phenomenal reviews, but has been getting decent word-of-mouth, resulting in the stylish, sixties-set spy romp remaining in the top five.
The biggest disappointment this weekend was the highly publicized pothead spy flick ‘American Ultra’ starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. The action-comedy didn’t even make the top five, debuting with a meager $5.5M. Purely editorializing at this point, but I’m going to blame this on the fact that despite what Hollywood might think, no one likes Jesse Eisenberg or Kristen Stewart. Sorry ’bout it.
The major blame for the lackluster openings this weekend are blamed on all of the new movies bearing an R rating. Fox’s distribution chief, Chris Aronson went on the record explaining, “At the end of the day, they cannibalized each other. It’s an unfortunate confluence of events. All three of those films combined would have made a decent opening for any one of them.”
While Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino blamed it on the Dog Days of Summer, stating “It’s a slow time. People are on vacation or generally busy outside, so studios shy away from opening something that they have confidence in.”
Maybe in some places, but where I live, school’s already been back in session for a couple of weeks now. Not the same reason, but definitely a potential contributor to the weak weekend.
Don’t expect any shakeups next weekend either. The only “major” movie coming out– and I use the term loosely– is ‘We Are Your Friends’ a romantic DJ movie starring Zac Efron. Also opening is ‘Max Steel’ based on the toy line, which I didn’t even realize had gotten made and it’s kinda my job to know these things. That can’t be good.
Probably worth hunting down is ‘Z For Zachariah’ a post-apocalyptic drama starring Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn in ‘Suicide Squad’) and Chris Pine (Steve Trevor in ‘Wonder Woman’ and of course Kirk in ‘Star Trek Beyond’) with Chiwetel Ejiofor (Baron Mordo in ‘Doctor Strange’). ‘Z For Zachiariah’ is only opening in limited release, but advance buzz is great and it stars three stars genre fans should be familiar with.
Check back next week for the latest rankings.
