Sunday, April 15, 2018

Rampage Goes Mildly Wild At Top of The Box Office While A Quiet Place And Truth or Dare Drum Up Scary Good Business

April 2018 continued to be a bustling place at the box office as the newest Dwayne Johnson blockbuster managed to secure the number one spot. That blockbuster was Rampage, which grossed $34.5 million over the weekend, about 38% below the opening weekend of San Andreas, the movie it was most clearly aping (no pun intended) in its marketing and the cast & crew assembled to bring it to life. Though that's on par with pre-release tracking, when you've got a movie costing $120 million, you want it to open to at least $40 or so million, though the fact that Rampage secured the third biggest opening weekend ever for a video game movie is a testament to Dwayne Johnson's appeal to audiences in family-friendly fare. Families came out in droves for this title, explaining why it held so well over the weekend. If Rampage holds like past April blockbusters that opened two weeks before a big Marvel movie like The Huntsman: Winter's War or Oblivion, it'll end it's domestic run with about $80 million. 



A Quiet Place relinquished the top spot this weekend but it still grossed a great $32.6 million, only 35% less than last weekend. This John Krasinski directed project is holding considerably better than usual horror fare and with $99.6 million in ten days, it's showing remarkable stamina at the box office. Word-of-mouth is working like gangbusters for this title and it should get to at least $160 million domestically. On a $17 million budget, that'll make it one of the most profitable titles of 2018, no problem.

Surprisingly, Truth or Dare managed to still make an impact in the marketplace despite fellow horror title A Quiet Place gathering so much attention. This one's $19 million bow wasn't record-breaking, but it was solid for a film that cost only $3.5 million to make and on par with the opening weekend of Blumhouse's first Oujia movie. Blumhouse is cornering the market on cheap horror fare with distinctive premises and Truth or Dare was yet another example of this, even if it's marketing was never quite able to resonate with viewers enough to take it past the $20 million mark on opening weekend. A much better than expected bow for this title, another winner for Blumhouse Productions,.

With Rampage on the scene, fellow Warner Bros. blockbuster Ready Player One fell 54% to gross another $11.2 million. We really need to space out these blockbuster movies more, there's just no chance for any of these titles to really stick around with all this rampant competition (Tomb Raider and Pacific Rim: Uprising aren't even a month old and they're already gone from movie theaters it seems). This Steven Spielberg directed feature has taken in an OK $114.6 million domestically and seems on track for a $140 million domestic total. Blockers fell 50% in its second weekend to gross another $10.2 million for a $36.9 million ten-day domestic total, putting it on track for a solid $60 million domestic finish. Black Panther still hasn't lost over 40% from weekend-to-weekend since it's third weekend of release and it didn't break that streak this go-around as it dipped only 38% to gross another $5.3 million for an outstanding $673.7 million domestic total.

Isle of Dogs finally came into wide release this weekend and ended up doing only OK business. Expanding into 1,939 theaters, the second widest theater count a Wes Anderson film has ever gone into, it only grossed $5 million this weekend, only $100,000 more than the wide release opening weekend of Moonrise Kingdom despite the fact that Isle of Dogs was playing in more than twice as many theaters than Moonrise Kingdom. Fox Searchlight has been widely promoting Isle of Dogs, but they didn't really push it's April 13th wide release date all that much, though it's also possible a PG-13 stop-motion animated tale of dogs was always gonna have more narrow appeal. Isle of Dogs should still be able to get past $30 million to become the fourth biggest Wes Anderson movie in history.

I Can Only Imagine fell 55% this frame to gross another $3.8 million, giving it a domestic total of $74.9 million to fate. Meanwhile, Acrimony dropped 56% to gross an additional $3.7 million, giving it a domestic total of $37.8 million. In its second weekend of release, Chappaquiddick rounded out the top ten with a $3 million gross, a 47% drop from last weekend, giving it a meager $11 million domestic total to date. Also in its second weekend of wide release was The Miracle Season, which went down 46% to gross another $2.1 million for an anemic domestic total of $6.9 million.

Bleecker Street's rough 2018 continued with Beirut, which grossed only $1.6 million from 755 locations this weekend for a per-theater average of only $2,193 (it's grossed $2 million since it opened on Wednesday). What little marketing was out there for Beirut just couldn't make the title stand out to general moviegoers, though a darker political thriller was always gonna be a tough sell in this political climate that will likely make moviegoers want more hopeful escapism than anything else. Though it's not listed on Box Office Mojo yet, the final new wide release of the weekend, Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, apparently grossed only $1 million from 1,633 theaters, a dismal bow.

In its second weekend of limited release, You Were Never Really Here grossed $324,282 weekend from 51 locations for a per-theater average of $6,358, an OK drop that could have been better, but is still a decent haul. We shall see how this one fares in expanding beyond arthouse audiences in it's planned wide release on Friday. You Were Never Really Here has now grossed $511,115 in ten days of release. Also in its second weekend of limited release this frame was Lean On Pete, which took in $79,021 from 18 locations for a per-theater average of $4,390 and a domestic total to date of $141,437. The Rider bowed in limited release this weekend, taking in a solid $45,268 from 3 locations for a per-theater average of $15,089, the fifth best limited release opening weekend per-theater average of 2018 so far. No word yet on how newbie limited releases Borg vs. McEnroe, Krystal and Zama performed this weekend, I shall update this piece when those numbers become available.

The top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $132.8 million, making this the second best fifteenth weekend of any given year in history.

No comments:

Post a Comment