Weekend Box Office: Far Out!

The scary movies produced by Jason Blum have consistently been big hits. This weekend puts Blum at two-for-two for 2017 with expectation-defying openings and #1 debuts. As for the weekend’s other new movies, well, neither of them even made it into the Top 10.

Jordan Peele is known mostly for his award-winning sketch comedy show ‘Key & Peele’. No one predicted his quick turnaround as a horror writer/director. His racially-charged freaky flick ‘Get Out‘ topped the box office with an amazing $30.5 million opening. Following the Blumhouse model, it was produced on a budget of just $4.5 million, which already makes this a wildly profitable release for distributor Universal. ‘Get Out’ has yet to open overseas, but even if it only slightly follows in the footsteps of last month’s ‘Split’ (which was also a Blum-produced thriller for Universal), it’s going to be a smash.

With a 42% dip in attendance, ‘The Lego Batman Movie‘ slipped into second place. The animated film’s third week drew $19 million, which brings its domestic total up to $133 million. With $90 million more in international sales, the 17-day total for this $80 million kids’ movie sits at $226 million.

Last week, ‘John Wick: Chapter Two‘ and ‘The Great Wall’ ran neck-and-neck. Wick ultimately succumbed to the Wall, but had a lighter dip over its third week and is back into in third place. Falling 45%, ‘Chapter Two’ grossed $9 million, bringing its domestic total within $10 million of the worldwide earnings for the original ‘John Wick’. To date, it has made $74.4 million domestically and $51.1 million overseas, giving it a $125.5 million worldwide total. Not too shabby for a $40 million R-rated sequel, right?

The Great Wall‘ took a 53% hit in its second week and fell to #4. The $150 million Chinese epic grossed $8.7 million, which pushes its domestic total up to $34.4 million. The reported international numbers are inconsistent this week, but we know that if it’s not already profitable, it will be there quickly thanks to strong numbers overseas.

Rounding out the Top 5, ‘Fifty Shades Darker‘ crossed the domestic $100 million milestone. The sequel’s box office dipped 62% to $7.7 million, for a 17-day total of $103.6 million. The movie’s international numbers are up to $224.7 million, giving it $328.3 million altogether.

Liongate’s ‘Sing’ and ‘Secret Life of Pets’ lookalike animated family movie ‘Rock Dog‘ tanked. From 2,077 locations, it pulled just $3.7 million, barely enough to put its debut in the #11 spot. With a $60 million budget, the Chinese co-production will rely heavily on international numbers for profitability.

As bad as ‘Rock Dog’ performed, the Nicholas Hoult/Felicity Jones thriller ‘Collide‘ did even worse. Landing at #13, it barely scraped together $1.5 million from 2,045 locations. That total puts its per-screen average at $753, which will easily make it one of the worst debuts of 2017.

Top 10:

1. ‘Get Out’ (Universal) – $30,524,435

2. ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.) – $19,000,000

3. ‘John Wick: Chapter Two’ (Summit) – $9,000,000

4. ‘The Great Wall’ (Universal) – $8,700,000

5. ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ (Universal) – $7,700,400

6. ‘Fist Fight’ (Warner Bros.) – $6,380,000

7. ‘Hidden Figures’ (Fox) – $5,875,000

8. ‘La La Land’ (Summit) – $4,600,000

9. ‘Split’ (Universal) – $4,118,460

10. ‘Lion’ (Weinstein) – $3,807,000

4 comments

  1. Csm101

    In Rock Dog’s defense, I didn’t even see one tv spot for it or even heard of it until I saw it on here.
    I just came back from Get Out and found it highly enjoyable. It’s nice to se the little guys score a win.

  2. ‘Collide’ was delayed a couple of times. I wonder if this explains its lack of success. Does an audience expect a movie to suck when it takes this long to come out? Doesn’t Felicity Jones have more star power than this? Didn’t Nicolas Hoult wow audiences with ‘About A Boy’ and ‘Mad Max’? Why did ‘Collide’ crash and burn?

    • Honestly, I’d never even heard of the movie until editing Luke’s Weekend Movies post. I’ve never seen a trailer or TV commercial, or even an internet ad for it. The distributor clearly had no faith in it and spent no money advertising it.

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