The weekend was pretty quiet (no pun intended), perhaps in anticipation of next week’s sure-to-be massive arrival of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. This year’s buzziest horror movie, John Krasinski’s ‘A Quiet Place’ returned to #1 at the weekend box office with $21.7 million. It’s earned $131.4M total on a micro-budget of $17M. Excellent reviews and word of mouth have helped push this film’s continued success. After debuting at #1 three weeks ago, it was bested (just slightly) last week by the big budget video game tentpole ‘Rampage’ starring the universally appealing Dwayne Johnson. The two movies are still competing neck-and-neck, with ‘A Quiet Place’ just barely edging out ‘Rampage”s weekend haul of $20.7M.
This week welcomed two new comedies. Comedies have been struggling in recent years; most theater goers are opting to shell out the big bucks for the Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ and their ilk and wait until lower budgeted comedies arrive on home video. Of course there have been a few break out hits here and there. One of those was Amy Schumer’s ‘Trainwreck’ in 2015. But unlike that film, Schumer didn’t write her latest, ‘I Feel Pretty’. Even so, the film came in slightly higher than expected with $15.17M. But it’s not doing fantastically. ‘Trainwreck’ opened with $30M and her last movie, ‘Snatched’ opened with $19.5M. Reviews have been awful and even audiences are eyeing this as a one-joke movie. In it, Schumer plays a woman who thinks she is the most gorgeous ever and behaves accordingly. One major criticism is that this movie essentially body shames its own star. Those that saw it, however, gave it a strong “B+” CinemaScore.
Broken Lizard’s ‘Super Troopers 2’ is the sequel to a 17 year-old cult comedy that was financed mainly through Indiegogo. The first movie only made $18.4M at the box office but when it hit home video it found its audience and earned $60M from just rentals. That doesn’t include sales. But considering the age of the first movie, and the fact that it is a cult favorite, there was no telling how this sequel was going to do. Conservative estimates were in the single digits– $5-7M– so its $14.8M haul is extremely impressive. Don’t ask me how they measured this, but a large chunk of its take came from the fact that its opening day, Friday, was 4/20– you know, “I Heart Marijuana Day.” The film earned an average CinemaScore of “B+”, same as ‘I Feel Pretty’, but obviously that film was mainly targeted at females, while this one was aimed at males. Keeping in mind that ‘Super Troopers 2’ is rated R, somehow many under 18 managed to get in and they loved the movie, giving it an “A+.” Not bad for a sequel to a movie that came out either the year they were born or before!
The low budget horror movie ‘Truth or Dare’ rounded out the Top Five.
- A Quiet Place (Paramount) – $21.7M
- Rampage (New Line/Warner Brothers) – $20.7M
- I Feel Pretty (STX Films) – $15.17M
- Super Troopers 2 (Fox Searchlight) – $14.8M
- Truth or Dare (Universal) – $8.1M
Next week will belong to ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ which is tracking to open to greater than $200M. We’ll see! Check back to see how it does and if anything can possibly give it anything in the way of competition.
Source: Deadline
