That box office race was especially tight this holiday weekend, but ultimately Disney’s ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ came out at #1 again in its third weekend. ‘The Last Jedi’ earned $68.3M over four days, just barely edging out ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ which accrued an impressive $66.5M over four days. Sony didn’t have high hopes for this franchise reboot, stating that they would be happy if it made $45M over six days. At this point, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, which stars Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Kevin Hart, is easing close to $200M, which it should hit within the next week. The original ‘Jumanji’ only made $100M in theaters, so the sequel (if you want to call it that) is looking to double that.
Until yesterday, it appeared that ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ would actually come out at #1, but thanks to New Year’s Eve traffic, ‘The Last Jedi’ managed to rally, leaving the Top Five identical to last week’s, at least in terms of placement.
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney) – $52.66M (3-day)/$68.3M (4-day)
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Sony) – $50.3M (3-day)/$66.5M (4-day)
- Pitch Perfect 3 (Universal) – $17.7M (3-day)/$22.7M (4-day)
- The Greatest Showman (20th Century Fox) – $15.6M (3-day)/$20.75 (4-day)
- Ferdinand (20th Century Fox) – $11.4M (3-day)/$14.6M (4-day)
Both ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Jumanji’ are scoring by appealing to as wide an audience as possible, ‘Pitch Perfect 3’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’ are benefiting by appealing to females who aren’t as likely to check out the Top Two. ‘Pitch Perfect 3’ is drawing mainly females under 25 while ‘The Greatest Showman’ is reaching the older audience. Interestingly both have gotten lousy reviews– ‘Pitch Perfect’ ranks at 33% rotten, while ‘The Greatest Showman’ is at 55%– but that doesn’t seem to have swayed average filmgoers.
Next week sees the opening of low-budget horror flick ‘Insidious: The Last Key’, the fourth in that franchise. It’s hard to predict how horror will do. Sometimes, despite poor reviews, horror movies can perform surprisingly well, especially with a small budget. But sometimes, when it comes to long-running properties, audiences get bored and lose interest. We’ll have to wait and see how this one does next week. Its rating is PG-13, so it should draw the teenage female audience, which makes up the largest demographic for these types of movies.
Check back then to see how things turn out!
