Weekend Box Office: Less Than Magnificent

With a star-studded fall tentpole and a new animated family film, this was expected to be a big weekend at the box office. However, with each of the new movies underperforming by about $10 million, it ultimately turned out to be pretty unremarkable.

The Magnificent Seven‘ topped the charts, but fell very short of where distributor Sony had predicted it to finish. Reuniting Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke alongside the popular Chris Pratt, the $90 million Western was expected to gross $45 million. Instead, the uninspired shoot-’em-up only pulled in $35 million. Based on its debut, the film will likely cross the $100 million mark, but won’t go over by much. Its international run, which will reveal if the pricy remake can turn a dollar, has yet to kick off. As of now, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is just another chicken scratch on the chalkboard of 2016 Hollywood misfires.

Aside from its new flagship ‘Lego Movie’ franchise, Warner Bros. doesn’t dabble much with animation. That market is owned by Disney, Universal, DreamWorks and occasionally Fox. The box office numbers for ‘Storks,‘ show exactly why Warner should stick to live action.

Expected to ride the same wave that brought ‘Zootopia’, ‘Finding Dory’ and ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ success this year, ‘Storks’ was estimated to open with $32 million. Instead, it only made $21.8 million. The $70 million family flick also opened overseas to $18.3 million, giving it a worldwide total of $40.1 million. While the word-of-mouth is strong, there’s no way the movie will join the ranks of the aforementioned hits.

After two straight weeks in the top spot, Warner Bros. decided to push ‘Sully‘ out to an additional 430 screens. ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘Storks’ topped it, but the #3 movie only fell 36% week-over-week and earned an additional $13.8 million. The Clint Eastwood/Tom Hanks film sits with a domestic 17-day total of $92.3 million. Overseas, it has pulled in $34.5 million, for a worldwide total of $126.8 million.

Finishing in fourth place was one of last week’s disappointments, ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby‘. With $4.5 million, the sequel fell 47% in its second week. Its ten-day domestic total is up to $16.4 million. While the $35 million romantic comedy is failing to take hold in North America, it’s doing quite well overseas, especially in the UK. The Renee Zellweger/Colin Firth picture has earned $67.1 million internationally, giving it an $83.5 million worldwide total.

Snowden‘ was the only of last week’s new releases to open in line with its studio’s predictions. The film’s second week resulted in a so-so 48% drop, but with $4.1 million it only slipped from the #4 spot to #5. With a ten-day total of $15.1 million, the controversial $40 million film will need to get some traction overseas (once its international roll-out begins) to become profitable.

One week ahead of its wide expansion, Disney’s ‘The Queen of Katwe‘ opened on 52 screens. The feel-good chess drama won $305,000 and a decent per-screen average of $5,865. Hopefully, the very well-reviewed picture will play well when it’s pushed out to 1,500 screens on Friday.

Top 10:

1. ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (Sony) – $35,000,000

2. ‘Storks’ (Warner Bros.) – $21,805,000

3. ‘Sully’ (Warner Bros.) – $13,830,000

4. ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’ (Universal) – $4,520,000

5. ‘Snowden’ (Open Road) – $4,144,989

6. ‘Blair Witch’ (Lionsgate) – $3,950,000

7. ‘Don’t Breathe’ (Screen Gems) – $3,800,000

8. ‘Suicide Squad’ (Warner Bros.) – $3,110,000

9. ‘When the Bough Breaks’ (Screen Gems) – $2,500,000

10. ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ (Focus) – $1,103,000

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