Boo! Poor Tom Hanks has a reason to be scared… or at least disappointed, as his latest movie based on the novels by Robert Koepp, ‘Inferno’ got extinguished this weekend by Tyler Perry’s latest drag opus ‘Boo! A Medea Halloween’, which took #1 for the second week in a row (the first two-fer for studio Lionsgate this year).
‘Inferno’, directed by Ron Howard, is the third film in the franchise, following ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels & Demons’. But ‘Angels & Demons’ came out in 2009 and this appears to be the latest example of a franchise taking too long off before its return and the heat for ‘Inferno’ cooled. The $75 million film was expected to open in the $20-$30M range, but flopped at an estimated $15M. Fortunately, the film will benefit from the foreign box office as it took in $150M globally, putting it in the black. But the failure in the US has got to sting, especially for esteemed director Howard, who is suffering through a string of big budget flops including ‘Rush’ and ‘In The Heart Of The Sea’ (both starring Chris Hemsworth).
But to be fair, even the #1 movie didn’t crack the $20M threshold. ‘Medea’ only made $16.67M during this low grossing Halloween weekend. The lower-than-average turnout is mostly being blamed on Halloween festivities, the World Series and the Presidential race. But poor reviews may have influenced some as well with Rotten Tomatoes rankings of 20% for ‘Inferno’, 24% for ‘Medea’ and 38% for the #3 entry ‘Jack Reacher’.
Along with ‘Reacher’, the Top Five was rounded out by holdovers ‘The Accountant’ and ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’.
- ‘Boo! A Medea Halloween’ (Lionsgate) – $16.67M
- ‘Inferno’ (Sony) – $15M
- ‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’ (Paramount) – $9.55M
- The Accountant (Warner Brothers) – $8.47M
- ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ (Universal) – $7.1M
Next weekend is expected to belong to Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange’ but… I dunno. Dreamworks’ ‘Trolls’ may pull an upset. Awards bait ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ directed by the controversial Mel Gibson is also opening and may draw an alternative crowd, but the failure of the older-skewing ‘Inferno’ doesn’t bode well.
Did you check out anything at the box office this weekend?
Source: Deadline
