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‘Happy Death Day 2U’ Finishes Fifth at Weekend Box Office

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While many predicted a better showing for Happy Death Day 2U, the film ended up in fifth place at the weekend box office with roughly $10 million in ticket sales ($13.5 since it was released on Wednesday).  This total is $16 million less than the original film made in its opening 3-day weekend frame back in 2017.

Every movie studio ended up being disappointed this weekend, as it was the worst three-day President’s Day weekend for ticket sales since 2004.  Chief among the underachievers was Alita: Battle Angel, whose lofty expectations never materialized (in first place with $36.5 million since Thursday), falling victim to the same inflated tracking numbers that sank The Lego Movie 2 last week (which finished second at the box office with $21.2 million).  While the turnout for all films this weekend was low, there may need to be less emphasis put on tracking and social media awareness for upcoming films, as both measures have proven to be wildly inaccurate in 2019 and have so far created unrealistic expectations for new releases this year. read more

‘The Prodigy’ Turns Out To Be Just Average at Weekend Box Office

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Prodigy is a term usually reserved for a young phenom that “can’t miss” in whatever field their talents take them, such as playing the piano, throwing the football, or even film making.  Unfortunately, for Orion pictures, this week’s “Prodigy” couldn’t cut the mustard at the box office, as the new film finished in sixth place with only an estimated $6 million dollar return.

The Prodigy (not to be confused with the techno-rock kings from the UK, who happen to be launching their first tour in ten years if you can believe it) entered a weak field for horror films (with Escape Room making one of its last appearance in the top 12 this week), but it could still not connect with fans or critics.  The Prodigy’s Rotten Tomatoes score currently clocks in at 45% (which is actually pretty good for a low budget, February horror film, although the sample size of 42 reviews was rather small as Orion did not screen the film early for critics).  Rotten Tomatoes’ user reviews were a little more kind, with a score of 53%.  Cinemascores’ polling has not been revealed as of yet, but a similar low audience rating will most likely be reported based on The Prodigy’s anemic showing at the box office. read more

‘Glass’ Threepeats as Superbowl Weekend Box Office Champ With Worst Totals in Two Years; ‘Escape Room’ Close to $100 Million World-Wide

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If you thought last weekend was a weak showing by the top 12 films at the box office, think again!

Glass stretched its winning streak to three weeks in a row with $9.5 million at the box office, but the victory was certainly no Super Bowl championship (actually more akin to beating the Cleveland Browns in the regular season), as the top 12 films in the country brought in an estimated $57 million dollars in total sales.  To find a total this low, one has to go all the way back to the first weekend in September of 2017. read more

‘Glass’ Wins An Incredibly Weak Weekend Box Office as ‘Serenity’ Bombs

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The good news for M. Night Shyamalan is that Glass finished in first place for the second week in a row, earning an estimated $19 million.  The bad news is that his sequel to Unbreakable dropped 53% since last week, and also came in well under Split’s second weekend.

Shyamalan’s Split opened slightly below Glass last weekend, but whereas Glass is starting to immediately dip, Split only dropped 36% in its second weekend, and will most likely beat Glass‘ overall domestic box office total.  Split was also able to add theaters over the film’s second and third week, capitalizing on “Split-fever” in the winter of 2017.  Glass, even with the weakest competition of the new year so far and two dead-on-arrival new releases, was not able to replicate the success of Shyamalan’s brief comeback. read more

‘Glass’ Proves to Be Breakable at Weekend Box Office

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M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass entered the Martin Luther King weekend with some lofty expectations, as some estimates placed the film’s debut in the $60 to $70 million range.  Unfortunately, that Glass wasn’t shatter-proof, as the latest twist-filled film from Shyamalan generated only $40.5 million over the Thursday to Sunday frame.

Shyamalan (a director with a more than inconsistent track record for both box office and critical successes-anyone remember his adaptation of The Last Air Bender?) faced virtually no new competition over the long weekend, as studios believed the hype and intentionally kept their films away from the sequel to Split and Unbreakable.  The reviews for Glass certainly didn’t help its performance, as the film currently clocks in with a 35% fresh rating (and 24% from top critics) on Rotten Tomatoes. Combine those stats with a lukewarm audience response, with a “B” grade from exit polling company Cinemascore, and you have a recipe for disaster only rivaled by the director’s brief foray into the seedy world of education reform (in 2013, Shyamalan tried to cash in on the trend with his expose entitled I Got Schooled).  Glass should continue to turn a modest profit, as it faces little competition over the next few weeks, but Shyamalan’s performance may serve as a bump in the road for his comeback tour (and no one is asking for sequels to After Earth, The Village, or Lady in the Water). read more

‘Escape Room’ Continues to Impress at Weekend Box Office

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Adam Robitel’s Escape Room continued to defy expectations, finishing fifth at the weekend box office with an additional $8.9 million for a total of $32.5 million so far.

The film picked up where it left off last week, maintaining its theater count in spite of two new wide releases (The Upside and A Dog’s Way Home) and continued competition from Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, and Mary Poppins Returns.  Escape Room’s box office only declined 51% this week, which is a better than normal drop for most films. When compared to recent entries from the horror genre such as the Nazi zombie splatfest Overlord (which dropped 63% in its second weekend and finished with only a $41 million gross world-wide) and The Possession of Hannah Grace (with a similar decline, but much less in revenue, ending with only $35 million world-wide), Escape Room seems to be bucking typical trends and surviving in a crowded marketplace. read more

‘Escape Room’ Exceeds Expectations with Second Place Finish at Weekend Box Office

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Escape Room entered a crowded marketplace this weekend, but Sony’s PG-13 “Saw-lite” film managed to finish second with an estimated $18 million at the box office.

Heading into the weekend, most analysts predicted that the film would be lucky to finish fifth, behind Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, and Bumblebee.  The fact that Escape Room defeated all but Aquaman (and played on 1,300 less screens than it’s closest competitor, Mary Poppins), is certainly impressive and proved that the timing was right for some jump scares and a younger, photogenic cast. read more

‘Overlord’ Finishes Third at Box Office; ‘Venom’ and ‘Halloween’ Continue to Add to Totals

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Bad Robot’s long-delayed and rumored about World War Two zombie tale Overlord finished third at the weekend box office while the break-out hits of October, Venom and Halloween (2018), continued to pad their already impressive totals.

Overlord, once rumored to be the fourth installment in the Cloverfield franchise, finished third with a modest $10.1 million dollar debut.  The hard-R tale of mad zombie science run amok may have been too much for the average movie-goer (who gave the film a mediocre B Cinemascore rating), but Overlord did score high with critics (the film currently has an aggregate rating of 81% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes).  The film will certainly earn back all of its production costs ($38 million) once international sales are included, but don’t expect Overlord to perform much better over the coming weeks with continued competition from tent-pole pictures from all of the major studios. read more

‘Halloween’ Crosses the $150 Million Mark at Weekend Box Office

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Although Halloween (2018) fell from the number one spot at the box office, the film did manage to cross the $150 million dollar mark with another strong weekend.

Halloween finished fifth overall with just over $11 million at this weekend’s box office due to some strong competition from three new films, including the ghost of Freddie Mercury in the Queen bio-pic Bohemian Rhapsody (an estimated $50 million dollar), Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms ($20 million),the R-rated comedy Nobody’s Fool ($14 million), and A Star is Born (which as of now, narrowly defeated Halloween with $11.1 million). Halloween also pulled in some very strong mid-week numbers, performing especially well (naturally) on Halloween with $5.5 million in receipts. read more

‘Halloween’ Slashes Through the Competition Again at the Box Office

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For the second week in a row, Halloween (2018) dominated the box office, earning a estimated $32 million dollars in its second week of release.  The latest in a long line of Michael Myers’ films currently sits at over $126 million in sales, and with a few more weeks of slim competition on the horizon, Halloween has a chance to cross the $200 million mark domestically.

Halloween only dropped 58% from last week’s debut, which was less than anticipated, as most horror films see a steeper decline in the 60-65% range.  The success of Halloween has sent many rival studios scrambling to fast track their own slasher properties, with rumors (unsubstantiated at best) running rampant about the return of Jason Voorhees.  Don’t be surprised if “news” of the return of Freddy or Leatherface is far behind, as Hollywood chases the latest trend at the box office. read more