Ocean’s 8 star-powered its way to the top of the box office this weekend with a robust $41.5 million opening, making it the largest debut in the history of the Ocean’s franchise not adjusting for inflation.
Boasting a powerhouse all-woman lead cast including Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter, the Warner Bros. release got off to a strong $15.8 million start on Friday (including Thursday night previews) and played solidly through the weekend to an audience that skewed heavily female (69 percent to 31 percent male) and over the age of 25 (also 69 percent to 31 percent). The franchise’s previous opening weekend record was set by Ocean’s Twelve, which debuted to $39.1 million in December 2004 (though of course ticket prices were much lower fourteen years ago).
While the Ocean’s franchise had been dormant for exactly eleven years (Ocean’s Thirteen opened on the same day in 2007), the studio smartly updated it with an all-woman ensemble, thereby avoiding a sense of having been-there-done-that. That also gave an added boost to the film’s profile early on, with excitement building as a roster of A-list female stars attached themselves to the project in the lead-up to production. Warner Bros. mounted an impressive marketing blitz that emphasized the film’s diverse cast, from old-school stars like Bullock and Blanchett to young guns Rihanna and Awkwafina.
Due to it being an all-woman reboot of a franchise traditionally starring men, comparisons are inevitably being made between Ocean’s 8 and the Ghostbusters reboot from 2016. In light of that, it bears mentioning that while the former debuted a bit lower than the latter’s $46 million opening weekend, its reported production budget is roughly half as much, giving it a leg up in terms of profitability.
Also debuting this weekend was A24’s hard-R horror flick Hereditary, which debuted to a solid $13 million on nearly 3,000 screens for 4th place. In addition to being A24’s widest release ever, Hereditary also scored the indie distributor’s biggest opening weekend, topping the $8.8 million brought in by The Witch back in 2015. It’s a very good debut for the reported $10 million-budgeted film, which benefitted from massive buzz following its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (not to mention a pretty great trailer).
Notably, as was the case with The Witch, audiences and critics appear somewhat divided on Hereditary. While the Rotten Tomatoes score currently stands at a superb 94%, the Audience Score on the review aggregator is much lower at 72%, while the CinemaScore came in at an abysmal D+. Nonetheless, even if it drops significantly next weekend, this should end up as another tidy horror hit for the studio when all is said and done.
The weekend’s other wide debut, Global Road’s Hotel Artemis, had a less impressive launch, debuting in eighth place with $3.1 million on 2,340 screens. Starring Jodie Foster and Sterling K. Brown, the action film is just the third release from the distributor, which released the family-oriented Show Dogs last month. Reviews were mixed, while the CinemaScore was a not-great C-.
Among holdovers, Solo: A Star Wars Story dropped to second place in its third weekend with $15.2 million, giving it a total of $176.1 million. That represents a 48 percent decline for the would-be Disney blockbuster, which is now looking at a final gross in the $200 million range.
Coming in third place was Fox’s Deadpool 2, which took in an estimated $13.6 million in its fourth weekend. While the super-antihero sequel will finish considerably lower than its predecessor in North America (the first film grossed $363 million domestically), it’s still an impressive haul, particularly given its placement in the thick of the summer moviegoing season.
Fifth place went to STX’s Adrift, which took in an estimated $5 million in its sophomore frame. That represents a drop of 56 percent from its debut last weekend, giving the survival film starring Shailene Woodley a total of $21.7 million after ten days of release.
Falling out of the top five for the first time was Avengers: Infinity War, which took sixth place with $6.8 million in its seventh weekend of release. The Disney-Marvel release now has $654.7 million in the bank and will remain the second highest-grossing MCU release of all time in North America, just behind this year’s Black Panther.
Rounding out the Top 10, Paramount’s sleeper hit Book Club took in an estimated $4.6 million in eighth place, giving it a solid $56.8 million total after four weeks of release. Ninth went to BH Tilt’s low-budget sci-fi/thriller Upgrade, which followed up its better-than-expected $4.6 million debut last weekend with an estimated $2.2 million, giving it a total of $9.2 million after ten days. And in tenth, Warner Bros./New Line’s Melissa McCarthy comedy Life of the Party brought in an estimated $2.1 million for a $50.2 million total after five weeks of play.
Limited Release:
Focus Features’ Won’t You Be My Neighbor? opened to an estimated $470,000 in 29 theaters, giving the critically-acclaimed Mr. Rogers documentary a healthy per-theater average of $16,207. That’s a similar opening to Magnolia’s hit Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary RBG, which debuted to $578,470 in 34 locations back in May and has since grossed over $9.1 million in North America. Neighbor is slated to expand in the coming weeks.
Overseas Update:
Avengers: Infinity War crept ever closer to the $2 billion worldwide mark this weekend, grossing an estimated $10.9 million from 51 territories for an international haul of $1.343 billion and a worldwide total of $1.998 million. It will soon become just the fourth film in history to hit the $2 billion mark globally. Its robust performance in China continued this weekend with another estimated $6.2 million, bringing the film’s total there to $368.4 million.
Solo: A Star Wars Story took in an estimated $11.3 million from 54 territories, bringing its international cume to $136.1 million and its global total to $312.2 million. Current totals for its underwhelming performance overseas include $21.8 million in the UK, $16.3 million in China, and $12 million in Germany.
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: ‘Ocean’s 8’ Scores Franchise-Best $41.5M Opening; ‘Hereditary’ Scares Up $13M appeared first on BoxOffice Pro.
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