As expected, none of this weekend’s three biggest new movie releases put up much of a fight against the reigning box office champs.
Even though it dropped an unexpected 55% in its second week, ‘Straight Outta Compton‘ maintained the top spot. Universal’s attempt at helping the holdover by increasing the film’s screen count from 2,757 to 3,025 failed. Its second week resulted in $26.7 million, which pushed its ten-day total up to $111.4 million.
In its fourth week, ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation‘ remained in the #2 spot. Slipping a soft 32% in attendance, the sequel collected another $11.7 million. To date, it has earned $157.7 domestically and $280.8 million overseas for a grand total of $438.5 million. Compared to the global success of prior ‘Impossible’ entries, ‘Rogue Nation’ is currently ranked fourth behind ‘Ghost Protocol‘ ($694.7 million), ‘Mission: Impossible II‘ ($546.3 million) and Tom Cruise’s original ‘Mission: Impossible‘ ($457.6 million), which it should pass in the very near future.
As expected, the most successful of the new movies was the low-budget Blumhouse horror flick ‘Sinister 2‘. The original ‘Sinister‘ debuted to $18 million, so it comes as a disappointment that the sequel – which was expected to finish the weekend with $15 million – only warranted a $10.6 million third-place opening. New distributor Focus Features has to be let down by the investment. (The first ‘Sinister’ was distributed by Lionsgate.)
Also serving as a franchise disappointment was the fourth place debut for ‘Hitman: Agent 47‘. The original ‘Hitman‘ opened in 2007 to $13.1 million, but ‘Agent 47’ only made $8.1 million. That’s not at all surprising when you take into account two factors: First, Fox barely put any effort into advertising its release. Second, the studio waited far too long to release a second installment of the videogame adaptation.
Guy Ritchie’s big screen adaptation of the 1960s TV series ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.‘ had a mild opening last week and a so-so second week as well. Rounding out the Top 5, it grossed $7.4 million and now sits with a ten-day total of $26.6 million. The film’s international roll-out kicked off this weekend and resulted in $26 million, showing that this spy flick will definitely have a much stronger reception overseas than stateside.
Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Steward’s stoner action comedy ‘American Ultra‘ failed to finished in the Top 5. Opening in the #6 spot, the Lionsgate picture only grabbed $5.5 million. This number is especially painful when you notice that the movie was pushed out to 2,778 screens, making for a low $1,980 per-screen average.
Weekend estimates have yet to be released for indie dark comedy ‘Digging for Fire’.
Top 10:
1. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (Universal) – $26,760,000
2. ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ (Paramount) – $11,700,000
3. ‘Sinister 2’ (Focus) – $10,633,000
4. ‘Hitman: Agent 47’ (Fox) – $8,200,000
5. ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ (Warner Bros.) – $7,420,000
6. ‘American Ultra’ (Lionsgate) – $5,500,000
7. ‘The Gift’ (STX) – $4,300,000
8. ‘Ant-Man’ (Buena Vista) – $4,088,000
9. ‘Minions’ (Universal) – $3,710,000
10. ‘Fantastic Four’ (Fox) – $3,60,000
