Weekend Wrap-Up: It Eats the Competition
September 19, 2017
It beat expectations again, earning $60.10 million over the weekend, which would have been an amazing opening weekend for a film that cost $35 million to make. American Assassin did okay, given its budget, while mother! struggled. Overall, the box office fell from last weekend, which is not surprising, given It’s monster opening last weekend. A decline of 32% is stark, but a weekend haul of $111 million is still great for this time of year. Compared to this weekend last year, 2017 won by a 24%, which is fantastic. Year-to-date, 2017 is still way behind by $410 million or 5.0% at $7.79 billion to $8.20 billion. However, 2017 has cut into 2016’s lead by $90 million in just two weeks, so you can’t complain about that.
It added $60.13 million to its running tally, which now sits at $218.81 million after just two weeks of release. The film is already the eighth biggest hit of 2017 and will be in the top five by this time next week. $300 million seems like an easy goal to reach at this point. If it merely matches this figure worldwide, it will make enough money to pay for the combined budget of this film and its upcoming sequel. Hopefully there is just one sequel and the studio doesn’t try and stretch the second half of the book into two halves.
American Assassin opened with $14.84 million, which is on the high end of expectations. Its reviews are just 34% positive, while it earned a B plus from CinemaScore. This suggests okay legs, so while it will top its $33 million production budget domestically, the film will need help internationally and / or on the home market to break even.
On the other hand, mother! struggled with just $7.53 million during its opening weekend. The film’s reviews are good, at 68% positive. However, it became just the ninth film to earn an F from CinemaScore. That said, this is likely due to the marketing promising one thing and the movie delivering another. For example, Drive earned 93% positive reviews, but only a C minus from CinemaScore. I don’t think mother! will be in theaters for long, but I think it has a chance of finding a more receptive audience on the home market.
Home Again earned $5.18 million over the weekend for a total of $16.98 million after just ten days of release. The film only cost $15 million to make, so it took just nine days to match its production budget domestically. Granted, it likely cost more than $15 million to advertise, so it will need help internationally and / or on the home market to break even, but this is a good start.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard remained in the top five for the fifth weekend in a row earning $3.59 million over the weekend for a total of $70.40 million after a month of release. It is doing about as well internationally and will finish with more than $150 million, significantly more, if it can find an audience in China.
- American Assassin Comparisons
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- mother! Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, mother!, It, American Assassin, Home Again