Fans were far from split over the movie ‘Split’ which raked in $40.2 million, far exceeding its $10M budget. One crucial factor could be the fact that the film is playing strongly to females, who headed out to theaters while many men were taking the various football playoffs over the weekend.
The success of ‘Split’ follows that of last year’s ‘TheVisit’ and marks a renaissance of sorts for director M. Night Shyamalan who after initial buzz and successes like ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’ began striking out with flops like ‘The Village’, ‘Lady In The Water’, ‘The Happening’, ‘After Earth’ and ‘The Last Airbender‘. By slashing his budgets, cutting out pricey special effects (not to mention big name Hollywood stars), Shyamalan has refocused on what he does best, which is spooky thrillers with surprising twists that are actually pleasing to audiences, as opposed to some of his previous films, where viewers felt duped or that the twists were getting formulaic or even downright silly.
This film has a throwback to one of Shyamalan’s oldest movies and that seems appropriate since the director stated that much of the script for ‘Split’ was actually written about 15 years ago. That also gives it something in common with the #2 movie of the weekend, ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ the sequel to a movie that came out in 2002. (There was already one sequel, 2005’s ‘xXx 2: State of the Union’ but Vin Diesel didn’t star in that one.)
‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ made roughly half of what ‘Split’ did, with $20M. But that was just in the U.S. Internationally, it took in $50.5M placing it #1 at the Global box office and it actually took the #1 spot in several countries.
‘Hidden Figures‘ took in an additional $16.3M and is now being eyed to likely make over $100M by the time it completes it theatrical run.
‘Sing’ and ‘La La Land’ rounded out the Top Five:
- Split (Universal/Blum House) $40.2M
- xXx: Return of Xander Cage (Paramount) – $20M
- Hidden Figures (20th Century Fox) – $16.3M
- Sing (Universal) – $8.9M
- La La Land (Lionsgate) – $8.3M
Your eyes don’t deceive you. ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘ has fallen out of the Top Five. But don’t cry for Disney as this anthology film has made over $500M in the U.S. and $1 billion globally.
The success of ‘Hidden Figures’ and ‘La La Land’ are at least partially due to the fact that were have entered Awards Season and the Oscar nominations are being announced this week. Any nominations these films garner should help them at the box office. The same is true for ‘The Founder’ the story of Ray Kroc the man who helped create McDonalds. The film opened this weekend, but only managed to generate $3.8M. It’s hoped that Oscar nominations will drive this film… but that’s provided it earns nominations.
Next week sees the release of ‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter‘ which, if anything, may cut into ‘xXx”s audience. ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ was meant to be a feel-good movie, but after footage of one of the starring dogs being put through some inhumane treatment on the set surfaced, this movie might be toast as dog lovers are calling for a boycott.
Check back and see how things work out!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
