Glowing reviews and word of mouth helped ‘Dunkirk’ stay atop the box office for a second week, topping newcomers like ‘The Emoji Movie’ and ‘Atomic Blonde’. ‘Dunkirk’ is drawing a pretty 
broad audience. Due to the subject matter, the majority consists of older males– a crowd that doesn’t usually race to theaters on opening weekend, thus providing this film with some legs.
But the film is also drawing fans of director Christopher Nolan, who has earned a great reputation based on his string of hits, ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy, ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Inception’. And as noted last week, the film is actually drawing younger females thanks to the casting of teen idol Harry Styles.
On the flip side, ‘The Emoji Movie’ appears to have been taken down by word of mouth. Usually, animated family movies do better on Saturday than on Friday thanks to matinees, but it seems the bad buzz from those that saw it on Friday squelched its second day performance. It earned a rather blah B CinemaScore. Even crappy animated movies usually earn A’s from viewers. And predictably, critics trashed it with a truly lousy 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, due to heavy marketing and lack of competition, the film drew its intended audience– young kids.
‘Girls Trip’ continues to be a breakout comedy hit for Universal. It’s been a terrible year for comedies, so ‘Girls Trip”s $20M second weekend is very impressive. The film was directed by Malcolm D. Lee and stars Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish.
‘Girls Trip’ might have siphoned off some of the female audience that could have turned out for ‘Atomic Blonde’ starring Charlize Theron as a kick ass spy during the end of the Cold War. There had been higher hopes, after Theron’s appearance in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, but her second major turn as an action hero appears to be more flash than substance, with a hackneyed plot involving stolen microfilm. But with few surefire blockbusters on their way, ‘Atomic Blonde’ may manage to hang in there over the next few weeks, similarly to ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’ which wasn’t a huge hit but managed to do well in the late summer season.
Hopefully this isn’t a bad sign for director David Leitch who is now working on ‘Deadpool 2’.
Here is the breakdown:
- Dunkirk (Warner Bros.) – $28.1M
- The Emoji Movie (Sony) – $25.65M
- Girls Trip (Universal) – $18.6M
- Atomic Blonde (Focus) – $18.6M
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (Sony/Marvel) – $13.45M
Next week sees the release of ‘The Dark Tower’. Will it tower over the competition? Check back and see!
Source: Deadline
