With the summer months quickly drawing to a close, Hollywood unleashed another slew of wide releases into the marketplace this weekend, though only one — Universal’s Good Boys — made much of a splash. That film, an R-rated comedy about a group of foul-mouthed middle schoolers, stole the top spot away from two-weekend champ Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw with an estimated $21 million from 3,204 locations, making it one of the rare comedies this year to outperform expectations.
Though some had predicted a three peat for Hobbs & Shaw this weekend, Good Boys rode a wave of positive buzz to land at No. 1, thanks in part to a savvy marketing campaign that emphasized the involvement of producer Seth Rogen, who also starred in and (executive-)produced the similar 2007 comedy hit Superbad. The raunchy comedy’s $21 million debut is almost exactly on par with last year’s R-rated Blockers (also produced by Rogen), which opened to a healthy $20.5 million and went on to gross over $60 million domestically. Good Boys’ 80% “Certified Fresh” Rotten Tomatoes score also likely gave it a bump, and with a good B+ Cinemascore and a superb RT Audience Score of 89%, it appears primed to enjoy a solid run ahead.
Hobbs & Shaw got bumped to second place with an estimated $14.1 million in its third frame, a drop of 44% from last weekend. With $133.7 million through Sunday, the Universal spinoff has now surpassed the $127.1 million lifetime gross of 2003’s 2 Fast 2 Furious not adjusting for inflation, putting it in seventh place among all films in the long-running franchise. Of course, Hobbs & Shaw has a much steeper reported budget of $200 million.
Notably, Universal has now crossed the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office for 2019, making it the second studio after Disney to reach that milestone this year.
Third place went to The Lion King, which dropped 41% from last weekend to an estimated $11.9 million, giving the Disney release a total of $496.1 million through the end of its fifth weekend. That puts the CG remake less than $10 million away from surpassing the lifetime gross of 2017’s Beauty & the Beast ($504 million), which will soon lose its status as the highest-grossing of Disney’s recent reimaginings in North America. The Lion King now stands at No. 14 on the list of all-time highest-grossing films domestically, just behind Beauty & the Beast and just ahead of 2016’s Finding Dory ($486.2 million), whose lifetime gross it surpassed this weekend.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 fell far short of its predecessor in its North American debut, opening in fourth place to just $10.5 million over the three-day period and $16.2 million since launching on Tuesday. That’s a sharp drop from the first film’s $38.1 million opening in 2016, making the Sony title the latest animated sequel this year to significantly underperform following such box office disappointments as The LEGO Movie 2 and The Secret Life of Pets 2.
It’s a particularly disappointing showing given the film’s super-wide launch in 3,869 locations, which puts it in similar territory to STX’s Uglydolls, which debuted to just $8.6 million from 3,652 locations back in May. Angry Birds 2 floundered despite garnering much stronger reviews than the first film, with a Rotten Tomatoes average of 76% versus the Angry Birds’ 44%. Even audiences liked it significantly better (its Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score is 85% vs. the previous installment’s 46%), though it’s likely the first film left a bad enough taste in moviegoers’ mouths that most opted not to go back for a second round.
Lionsgate’s Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark came in fifth, dropping 52% to an estimated $10 million in its sophomore frame, putting the Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror adaptation at $40.2 million after ten days of release. The tween-targeted horror film has benefitted from its less-restrictive PG-13 rating and the fact that many in its target audience remain on summer break, though that will change for a good portion of the country this week.
Finishing considerably lower than Entertainment Studios’ $13-$15 million prediction going into the weekend, horror-thriller sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged grossed $9 million in sixth place from 2,853 locations. That’s lower than the first film’s $11.2 million opening in 2017 despite debuting on nearly 400 more screens, and also below the $12 million brought in by the man-eating alligator flick Crawl earlier this summer. It’s possible some of its audience was stolen away by Scary Stories, which also has a PG-13 rating and appeals to a similar demo.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold finished in seventh place with an estimated $8.5 million, giving the family adventure film $33.9 million after ten days of release. That’s a drop of 51% for the well-reviewed Paramount title.
In eighth place, holdover Once Upon a Time in Hollywood showed some serious legs with an estimated $7.6 million, a drop of just 35% from last weekend. With $114.3 million through the end of its fourth weekend, the Sony title will soon surpass the $120.5 million lifetime gross of 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, which would make it the second highest-grossing Quentin Tarantino film of all time after 2012’s Django Unchained ($162.8 million).
Opening in ninth place was freshman release Blinded By the Light, which centers on a British-Pakistani teenager who forms an obsession with the music of Bruce Springsteen. The jukebox musical, which Warner Bros. acquired at this year’s Sundance for a cool $15 million, debuted to an estimated $4.45 million from 2,307 locations, a disappointing result for a film that nonetheless garnered the best Rotten Tomatoes average of any of the weekend’s new releases at 90%. Despite its obvious similarities to this summer’s sleeper hit Yesterday, it couldn’t come close to matching that film’s $17 million opening. Notably, audiences who have seen Blinded By the Light are giving it high marks; the Gurinder Chadha-directed comedy has an A- Cinemascore and a terrific 93% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Family weeper The Art of Racing in the Rain rounded out the Top 10 with an estimated $4.40 million, a drop of 45% from last weekend. The Disney-released Fox title now has $16.8 million after ten days of play.
Debuting just outside the Top 10 was the weekend’s final new wide release Where’d You Go, Bernadette, an adult-skewing comedy-drama starring Cate Blanchett and based on the novel by Maria Semple. Opening in 2,404 locations, the United Artists release brought in just $3.45 million, weighed down by poor reviews (43% on Rotten Tomatoes) that likely turned off many in its core audience of older women.
Overseas Update:
Hobbs & Shaw brought in an estimated $45.7 million overseas this weekend, including a $15 million start in Korea. Its international total stands at $303.3 million and its worldwide cume is $437 million.
With another $33.8 million overseas this weekend, The Lion King now has $939.1 million internationally and $1.4352 billion worldwide, placing it at No. 9 on the list of all-time top-grossing films globally, having surpassed the $1.405 billion brought in by Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015.
Spider-Man: Far From Home became Sony’s top grossing film of all time worldwide this weekend, passing Skyfall’s $1.108 billion in global ticket sales. The domestic total for the MCU installment stands at $376.6 million.
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: <em>Good Boys</em> ($21M) Steals No. 1 from <em>Hobbs & Shaw</em> ($14.1M); <em>Angry Birds 2</em> Flutters to $10.5M; <em>47 Meters Down: Uncaged</em> Eats Up $9M appeared first on Boxoffice.
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