The Predator brought one of cinema’s most iconic villains back to the big screen this weekend and topped the domestic box office, bringing in an estimated $24 million over its opening frame. That knocked last weekend’s big winner The Nun to second place, while fellow newcomer A Simple Favor enjoyed a better-than-anticipated debut and White Boy Rick opened about in line with expectations.
Directed by Shane Black, The Predator fell a bit below expectations this weekend, even falling short of the $24.7 million opening of 2010’s Predators. This is especially striking given that the latter film debuted on 1,300 fewer screens (2,669 vs. 4,037), which suggests audiences simply weren’t excited about the latest reboot of the long-running series. It didn’t help that The Predator performed poorly with critics (its Rotten Tomatoes score currently sits at a weak 34%), while its “C+” Cinemascore suggests poor word-of-mouth may have been a factor here. Indeed, the film was certainly frontloaded, declining 18 percent from Friday to Saturday ($10.4 million to $8.5 million). It’s also worth noting that recent controversy around cast member Steven Wilder Striegel could have impacted the film’s opening weekend grosses.
With a reported production budget of $88 million, The Predator will need to post strong holds over the coming weeks and/or perform robustly overseas. While the former seems unlikely (Predators plummeted over 70% in its sophomore frame), the films have traditionally performed moderately well in international markets (see below). Nonetheless, this is clearly a disappointing domestic opening for what had been seen as the kickoff to a new string of Predator films.
Dropping to second place this weekend is Universal’s horror hit The Nun, which took in $18.2 million in its sophomore frame. That’s a steep 66 percent drop from last weekend, when the film grossed a higher-than-expected $53.8 million, and the sharpest second-weekend drop in the Conjuring franchise yet. Moviegoers were generally less keen on The Nun than previous films in the series, with opening-day audiences giving it a franchise-low “C” Cinemascore. Nonetheless, its ten-day total stands at a strong $85 million, and it will easily top $100 million by the end of its run.
Third place went to freshman release A Simple Favor, the dark comedy starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively that benefitted from strong reviews (it’s “Certified Fresh” at Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 82%), the starpower of its two leads, and a savvy social media-driven marketing campaign that saw Lively delete her Instagram account for 24 hours. The Lionsgate title performed a bit better than forecasts had predicted with an opening frame of $16 million, which is about in line with this year’s Jennifer Lawrence thriller Red Sparrow ($16.8 million opening) and 21 percent higher than the 2015 Lively vehicle The Age of Adaline ($13.2 million).
Reviews certainly helped A Simple Favor‘s performance this weekend, but so did word-of-mouth. Opening day audiences awarded the film a very good “B+” Cinemascore, which is the same as two previous hits from director Paul Feig, 2011’s leggy Bridesmaids and 2015’s Spy. While A Simple Favor is a smaller-scale release and almost certainly won’t approach the $100 million-plus gross of either of those films, it’s still an impressive start for the film, which comes with a reported production budget of $20 million. The audience for this one was heavily female at 67 percent.
Debuting in fourth place is White Boy Rick, which tells the story of drug kingpin Richard Wershe Jr., who in the 1980s became the youngest FBI informant ever at the age of 14. The Sony/Studio 8 release performed about in line with expectations with $8.8 million, which is slightly higher than the $8 million debut of the similarly-themed Snowden. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the film is 64 percent, while opening day audiences gave it a “B” Cinemascore.
Three-time champ Crazy Rich Asians dropped to fifth place in its fifth frame, grossing an estimated $8.7 million and bringing its total to an incredible $149.5 million. That easily puts the breakout hit in the Top 10 highest grossing romantic comedies of all time.
Sixth place went to Peppermint, the Jennifer Garner revenge thriller that debuted to $13.4 million last weekend. This weekend the STX release brought in $6 million, representing a drop of about 54 percent. That’s about in line with this year’s similar Death Wish, which dipped roughly 49 percent in its sophomore frame and finished its domestic run with $34 million in the bank. We’re expecting a similar final result for Peppermint, which now has $24.2 million after ten days of release.
In seventh, shark thriller The Meg brought in an estimated $3.8 million, giving the Warner Bros. surprise hit $137 million so far. Eighth place went to Sony/Screen Gems’ Searching, which eased just 28 percent to $3.2 million. The critically-acclaimed John Cho thriller now has $19.6 million to date.
Opening way down in ninth place is Unbroken: Path to Redemption, which debuted to a rather weak $2.35 million in 1,620 locations. The semi-sequel to Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken suffered a similar fate as other recent faith-based films like God Bless the Broken Road and God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, neither of which was able to break through with audiences. Like those titles, Path to Redemption is looking at a short theatrical shelf life.
Rounding out the Top 10 is Mission: Impossible – Fallout with an estimated $2.3 million in its eighth weekend of release. With $216.1 million so far, Fallout is now officially the highest-grossing M:I film domestically not adjusting for inflation, topping the $215.4 million brought in by Mission: Impossible II in 2000.
Overseas Update:
The Predator opened to an estimated $30.7 million in 72 international markets, giving the sci-fi/action reboot a worldwide debut of $54.7 million.
This weekend Disney officially posted their second-biggest year of all time worldwide, topping 2017’s $6.458 billion global total thanks to massive hits like Black Panther ($1.34 billion), Avengers: Infinity War ($2.04 billion), and Incredibles 2 ($1.18 billion). The studio’s biggest year remains 2016, when its films grossed a collective $7.6 billion worldwide.
The Nun brought in an estimated $33.1 million in 62 international markets, giving it an international total of $143.6 million and a global cume of $228.7 million.
With another $3.3 million worldwide this weekend, Sony’s Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation topped $500 million at the global box office. The threequel is the highest-grossing entry in the franchise worldwide, topping Hotel Transylvania 2‘s $474.8 million total.
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: ‘The Predator’ Opens to So-So $24M; ‘A Simple Favor’ Strong with $16M; ‘White Boy Rick’ Nabs $8.8M appeared first on BoxOffice Pro.
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