Annabelle: Creation

Weekend Box Office: Nut Allergy

Horror is on the rise, while shoddy kids’ movies and shameless Oscar bait are declining. Despite one of the weekend’s new movies having an unexpectedly large opening, the other releases under-performed so much that the box office is still down significantly over last year.

Easily dominating the box office was the fourth entry to the ‘Conjuring’ universe, ‘Annabelle: Creation‘. The R-rated horror flick debuted to $35 million, which is less than $2 million below the opening of the first ‘Annabelle’ and less than $7 million below that of the highest-grossing ‘Conjuring’ entry. Produced on a dinky $15 million budget, ‘Creation’ is already a massive a success. From 39 international markets, it made another $36.7 million, giving it a $71.7 million worldwide opening. If this series can keep up the well-earned scares, it will continue to be an appealing franchise.

Four weeks into its release, ‘Dunkirk‘ is still near the top of the chart. After falling just 33% this weekend, it retained its #2 spot with $11.4 million. The film’s domestic total climbed up to $153.7 million and its international total is at $210 million, bringing the $100 million war epic’s worldwide total up to $363.7 million.

The ‘Nut Job’ sequel finished in third place, meaning that more fuddy-duddies went to see ‘Dunkirk’ than parents took kids to see ‘The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature‘. From 4,003 locations, the movie only drew $8.9 million. For those keeping track, that’s a new record low for a film debuting on more than 4,000 screens. Budgeted at $40 million, Open Road execs are likely praying for international success to get them out of the red.

Last weekend’s #1 movie took a hard hit over its second week. ‘The Dark Tower‘ fell 59% and finished in fourth place with $7.8 million. That puts its ten-day total at $34.3 million. Internationally, it has drawn $19.3 million. To date, the $60 million film has only grossed $53.6 million worldwide.

The Emoji Movie‘ rounded out the Top 5. Interestingly, it saw its lowest box office decline to date despite a new competing kids’ movie hitting the big screen. With a 45% drop, it pulled $6.6 million and now stands with a domestic total of $63.5 million. International moviegoers have fueled it with $33.6 million, giving the $50 million animated movie a worldwide draw of $97.1 million.

Someone threw a rock right through Lionsgate’s 1,461-screen debut of ‘The Glass Castle‘. The Brie Larson drama fizzled with only $4.8 million, landing at #9.

In limited release, one of the weekend’s pictures crushed it while the other struggled. Surprisingly, the stronger of the two was the Aubrey Plaza Sundance acquisition ‘Ingrid Goes West‘. The comedy made $141,216 from three locations, giving it a $47,072 per-screen average. Marc Webb’s ‘The Only Living Boy in New York‘ didn’t fare so well. From 15 locations, it made $57,619 and a flimsy per-screen average of $3,841.

Top 10:

1. ‘Annabelle: Creation’ (Warner Bros.) – $35,040,000

2. ‘Dunkirk’ (Warner Bros.) – $11,405,000

3. ‘The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature’ (Open Road) – $8,934,748

4. ‘The Dark Tower’ (Sony) – $7,875,000

5. ‘The Emoji Movie’ (Sony) – $6,605,000

6. ‘Girls Trip’ (Universal) – $6,520,500

7. ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ (Sony) – $6,100,000

8. ‘Kidnap’ (Aviron) – $5,225,000

9. ‘The Glass Castle’ (Lionsgate) – $4,875,000

10. ‘Atomic Blonde’ (Focus) – $4,875,000

1 comment

  1. NJScorpio

    “Nutty By Nature”

    Oh boy. We’ve hit this time where things I recall being cool from my childhood are being repurposed as Dad Jokes, to market children’s media to dads my age.

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