Gerard Butler action flick ‘Angel Has Fallen’ over-indexed for an impressive $21.25 million opening. It falls just shy of the first weekend of its predecessor ‘London Has Fallen’ which opened with $21.7M, but that film came in at #2 behind Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ in 2016. Its audience exit results are equal with an A- CinemaScore, and its PostTrak score is an excellent 4½ stars out of 5. Not surprisingly, critics are not so wowed, with its Rotten Tomatoes score being 40%.
This picture was made more for the foreign audience, but it may face some tough opposition there, as ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is just now opening in China, where it earned $102M, the highest August debut ever in that country.
‘Good Boys’ slipped to #2 with $11.75M, followed by the faith-based ‘Overcomer’, which earned $8.2M. Its very slanted CinemaScore is A+, but the only people that went to see it were underserved Christians, which the movie was made to pander to. The crowd was mostly comprised of women over 45.
‘The Lion King’ held on to #4 with $8.15M in the US. Worldwide, it has now made $1.5 billion! Its grand total will only grow– it just opened in Italy this weekend. It currently ranks as the #9 movie of all time, and is expected to surpass ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Avengers’ during its cinematic run to climb even higher on that list.
‘Hobbs & Shaw’ comes in at #5.
Fox Searchlight’s arty horror flick ‘Ready or Not’ is a certified flop, with $7.6M for the weekend, and $10.6M for three days, Weds-Sun. Critics think highly, as its RT cumulative score is 87%, and audiences were somewhat impressed; Its CinemaScore is a good B+, although its PostTrak score is weaker at 3½ stars. With a low budget of $6.5M, it should break even, but it sounds as though this is a buried treasure that genre fans may want to seek out while they can.
TOP FIVE
- Angel Has Fallen (Millennium/Lionsgate) – $21.2M
- Good Boys (Universal) – $11.75M
- Overcomer (Sony) – $8.2M
- The Lion King (Disney) – $8.15M
- Hobbs & Shaw (Universal) – $8.14M
Nothing important is opening next weekend. The only potential contender is the thriller ‘Don’t Let Go’, with a largely African American cast including Storm Reid and David Oyelowo. Beyond that, expect the Top Five to basically be the same as this week, just with less money.
Source: Deadline
