‘Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation’ gave Adam Sandler the second best opening of his career, fittingly trailing behind ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’. It perhaps didn’t do as well as the second because it was released in the summer, while the first two were released in the fall because of their monster/Halloween theme. Even so, its $44.1M opening is very strong and this may be the last major family animated flick of the summer, as back-to-school creeps closer. It is possible that ‘Teen Titans GO! To The Movies’ could do well in two weeks, but it may be arriving just a little too late.
Dwayne Johnson’s latest ‘Skyscraper’ only took in $25.4M, earning the #3 spot and was the ultimate victim of poor timing. Johnson’s core audience is families with kids, but right now, there are just too many flicks catering to that crowd including ‘Hotel Transylvania 3’ as well as the #2 movie ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’, #4 ‘Incredibles 2’ and #5 ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’. Some are pointing out that ‘Skyscraper’ is an original intellectual property, which may also have failed to entice some, while others point to the fact that this is the third Johnson movie within the last year, after ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Rampage’, so fans could be burnt out. Comparisons to ‘Die Hard’ also didn’t help, as people felt they had seen all of this before.
Top Five:
- Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (Sony) – $44.1M
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (Disney) – $28.8M
- Skyscraper (Universal/Legendary) – $25.4M
- The Incredibles 2 (Disney) – $16.2M
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Universal) – $15.5M
It looks as though all the studios have rolled out their major summer releases. Next week, we have ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’, ‘The Equalizer 2’ and low budget horror flick ‘Unfriended: Dark Web’. None is going to come close to $100M, but they may do well enough to enter the Top Five. ‘Mama Mia!’ will draw older females, while ‘The Equalizer 2’ will appeal to older males. And as usual, low budget horror’s major demographic is teenage girls. With so many family-friendly tent poles in release, these could serve as counter programming.
Check back to see how things pan out.
Source: Deadline
