A Quiet Place

Weekend Box Office: Make Some Noise

What a weekend! It’s not uncommon for scary movies to be financially profitable, but not too many become giant box office hits right out of the gate like this weekend’s newbie. In addition, the new R-rated comedy and the scandalous political drama also performed strongly.

Hats off to John Krasinski, who co-wrote, directed and starred in this week’s box office winner, ‘A Quiet Place‘. Not only did the PG-13 horror movie score a lot of critical acclaim, it debuted in North America to an unexpectedly high and well-deserved $50 million. Taking into account its reception and word-of-mouth, the film is forecasted to bow around the $150 million ballpark, if not even more. International moviegoers in 40 markets also fueled it to success. With $21 million in foreign ticket sales, the movie’s worldwide opening is estimated at $71 million, which is a hell of a kickoff for a fairly small $17 million picture.

Carried by its nostalgia for ’80s nerd culture, there was some speculation that Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One‘ wouldn’t hold over well after last week’s solid debut. However, weekend #2 resulted in a moderate 40% decline, a #2 finish, and $25 million in the bank. After 11 days, the entertaining popcorn picture has grossed $96.9 million domestically. Now playing in 65 international markets, its foreign total is up to $294.4 million, raising its worldwide gross to $391.3 million. Produced on a $175 million budget, Spielberg has delivered quite a hit for Warner Bros. and film lovers.

I have yet to hear a positive first-hand account about ‘Blockers‘, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t fill theaters. Coming in third, the crude R-rated comedy opened to $21.4 million, which is $4.4 million more than February’s similar R-rated hit ‘Game Night’. It also collected $3.2 million from 15 foreign markets. A $24.6 million worldwide launch is great for a modest picture budgeted at $21 million. The question now is whether it can hold over as well as ‘Game Night’ did.

Eight-week-old ‘Black Panther‘ finished at #4 after another light 27% drop. Considering how strongly it’s still playing, perhaps Disney should rethink the decision to bump the new ‘Avengers’ up a week? An additional $8.4 million brings the film’s domestic total to $665.3 million, edging out ‘Titanic’ and making it the third highest-grossing domestic release of all time. Combined with $635 million in international earnings, the movie’s worldwide total is almost up to $1.3 billion.

After expanding wider and wider over the past four weeks, the faith-based drama ‘I Can Only Imagine‘ is still drawing moviegoers like crazy. Slipping just 20%, it rounded out the Top 5 with $8 million. To date, the $7 million picture has pulled $69 million domestically.

The controversial Kennedy drama ‘Chappaquiddick‘ only made it into the #7 spot, but while that rank isn’t too impressive, the $6.2 million in returns is pretty decent and above expectations. Older moviegoers flocked to its opening weekend, signaling that holdover ought to be decent. The film’s international rollout has yet to begin.

The only new release to underperform was the feel-good drama ‘The Miracle Season‘. While its audience reception is positive, the movie only made $4.1 million from 1,707 locations, placing it outside the Top 10.

In limited release, Well Go USA’s mind-bending science fiction thriller ‘The Endless‘ took $8,600 from one location. There’s no word on an expansion, but I’m hoping to see it land with VOD services very soon.

Top 10:

1. ‘A Quiet Place’ (Paramount) – $50,000,000

2. ‘Ready Player One’ (Warner Bros.) – $25,060,000

3. ‘Blockers’ (Universal) – $21,439,000

4. ‘Black Panther’ (Buena Vista) – $8,430,000

5. ‘I Can Only Imagine’ (Roadside) – $8,356,800

6. ‘Tyler Perry’s Acrimony’ (Lionsgate) – $8,065,000

7. ‘Chappaquiddick’ (Entertainment) – $6,200,000

8. ‘Sherlock Gnomes’ (Paramount) – $5,600,000

9. ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ (Universal) – $4,910,000

10. ‘Isle of Dogs’ (Fox Searchlight) – $4,600,000

8 comments

  1. DarthGilman

    “I have yet to hear a positive first-hand account about ‘Blockers‘” Gee, if only there was some place that collected first-hand accounts of movies or even games that people could go to and see such things. I bet such a place would get a lot of web traffic and make a lot of money. Someone should maybe approach a big company like Google about making such a place. It could be huge for them.
    Wow. Such a lame excuse to get out of admitting you were wrong about trash-talking this movie based solely on the trailers and your preconceived notions. If you didn’t like the movie, fine, but don’t pretend it’s a mystery why this movie did well at the box office when right now it has higher Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores than RPO.

      • Luke Hickman
        Author

        On the nose, Josh. Each friend of mine – critics and non-critics – has called it crap. That’s where my basis came from.

        I often have to eat crow when my predictions are proven wrong. Some great movies flop and some terrible movies succeed. It is what it is. There’s no excuse here.

      • Luke Hickman
        Author

        That’s always been my thought. It doesn’t matter to me what the masses think. I gravitate towards those who have a taste similar to mine, then follow them.

  2. NJScorpio

    There is something about tallented comedic writers taking on horror movies that results in some great stuff. Even Kevin Smith’s ‘Red State’ is one of his better movies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *