Weekend Box Office: Rat Race

Although highly congested, this weekend ended up being a very successful one for most of the new movies that opened.

With a debut landing just $2 million behind the first ‘Maze Runner‘, its sequel ‘Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials‘ topped the box office charts with a solid $30.3 million domestic opening. The film’s international run kicked off last week in a few markets and expanded this weekend. Overseas, ‘Scorch Trials’ has grossed $78 million. The $61 million Young Adult adaptation is $108.3 million into what’s shaping up to be a healthy theatrical run.

With a well-deserved R rating, even though Johnny Depp’s gritty drama ‘Black Mass‘ wasn’t able to outgross the accessible PG-13 ‘Maze Runner’ sequel, it was still a much-needed success for the wavering actor. The $53 million organized crime flick opened to $23.3 million domestically. Its international run has barely kicked off and won’t show measurable results until its expansion.

M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Visit‘ finished in the #3 spot with $11.3 million and a 55% drop in attendance, which isn’t half bad for a horror flick. After ten days, the director’s successful micro-budget return to form has earned $42.3 million.

The fourth place spot was filled by last week’s surprise winner ‘The Perfect Guy‘. With a nasty 63% drop in attendance, the romantic thriller pulled $9.6 million. The $12 million picture’s ten-day total sits at $41.3 million.

The Top 5 was rounded out by the IMAX-exclusive release of ‘Everest‘, the true story ensemble drama about several teams of hikers who were caught unprepared on Everest’s peak when a deadly storm rolled in. The intense film collected $7.5 million from 545 locations and will expand nationwide to all screen formats on Friday. With the combined weekend totals of ‘Everest’ and ‘The Visit’, Universal just became the first studio to ever cross the $4 billion milestone in a calendar year.

Paramount’s faith-based acquisition ‘Captive‘ kicked off on 806 screens, but like last weekend’s religions drama ’90 Minutes in Heaven’, it had a hard time finding success in the wake of ‘War Room’. The drama starring Kate Mara and David Oleyowo rounded out the Top 10 with $1.4 million, giving it a less-than-great $1,737 per-screen average.

Sicario‘ led the specialty box office with the best limited release debut of the year. From six locations, the war-on-drugs drama confiscated $390,000, for a $65,000 per-screen average. The Lionsgate film expands nationwide on October 2nd.

Edward Zwick’s Bobby Fischer drama ‘Pawn Sacrifice‘ had a decent limited debut as well. From 33 locations, the Tobey Maguire vehicle scored $206,879 with a per-screen average of $6,269.

Top 10:

1. ‘Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials’ (Fox) – $30,300,000

2. ‘Black Mass’ (Warner Bros.) – $23,360,000

3. ‘The Visit’ (Universal) – $11,350,000

4. ‘The Perfect Guy’ (Screen Gems) – $9,640,000

5. ‘Everest’ (Universal) – $7,560,000

6. ‘War Room’ (TriStar) – $6,250,000

7. ‘A Walk in the Woods’ (Broad Green) – $2,732,730

8. ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ (Paramount) – $2,250,000

9. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (Universal) – $1,970,000

10. ‘Captive’ (Paramount) – $1,400,000

1 comment

  1. William Henley

    Those are pretty impressive numbers for Everest considering it was an Imax only release last week. I wouldn’t be surprised if it tops the charts next week.

    Wow, Straight Out of Compton fell fast – behind the older Mission Impossible? The steam on that movie dried up fast.

    I am actually surprised War Room is still doing so well. They only took a 20% hit this week, the least of any other movie in the top 10, and they added an additional 298 theaters. It is supposed to open up in Central and South America this week and over the coming weeks, so it will be interesting to see how the movie fares there. I have not heard any plans to expand to the eastern hemisphere.

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