Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Wins The Box Office Again As King Arthur Loses Legendary Amounts Of Money

We got the first major blockbuster bomb of the summer this weekend, one that'll probably go down as one of the years bigger duds. Before we get to that film though, let's first talk about Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, which ruled the box office again with $63 million, a 57% decline from its opening weekend. That's a slightly better second-weekend hold than the ones experienced by the last three early May Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Captain America: Civil War (59%), Avengers: Age Of Ultron (59%) and Iron Man 3 (58%), though it's slightly larger than the 55% decline the first Guardians Of The Galaxy experienced in its second weekend. In ten days, this new Guardians Of The Galaxy movie has grossed $246.1 million and looks to be headed for a final domestic total in the $350-360 million range.



Amy Schumer managed a decent opening weekend with Snatched, a $42 million-budgeted comedy that bowed to $17.5 million opening weekend. That's a 41% drop from the bow of Schumer's last comedy, Trainwreck, but it's an alright debut that shows that Schumer does seem to have some pull as a leading comedic actor. Why did this one not quite break through as a big hit? The more mixed reviews and the fact that Goldie Hawn may not be as noteworthy to younger moviegoers probably didn't help, ditto for the lack of a major hook beyond "Mom and daughter get into hijinks" in the marketing. However, it wouldn't be surprising to see this one hold decently in the weeks and crack $50 million domestically. That would make it the first comedy of 2017 to surpass $50 million domestically, a sign that comedies haven't really been firing on all cylinders thus far in 2017. The likes of Baywatch, Rough Night and The House will try to reverse that trend in the near future.

And now we get to the weekend's big financial misfire, King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword. This one bowed to only $14.7 million on a $175 million budget, which is....not good. If they're hoping overseas revenue will save them, that also seems like an ill-placed hope considering it debuted in the majority of foreign territories (including an anemic bow in China) to the tune of only $29 million. Shifted around the schedule forever and plagued by production problems (Deadline did a great rundown of the various behind-the-scenes mayhem this film experienced), King Arthur had the scent of a troubled production but plenty of movies with chaotic productions went on to make loads of cash (hey Titanic and World War Z)! Warner Bros. pumped out tons of ads in recent weeks and even put out two new trailers in the past two months for it, but they couldn't make the film resonate with audiences. Opening it between new entries in highly established franchises like Guardians Of The Galaxy, Alien and Pirates Of The Caribbean only further made sure it sunk into obscurity. This one should end its domestic run between $35 and $40 million.

In fourth place, The Fate Of The Furious revved up another $5.3 million, a 38% drop from last weekend. It's grossed $215 million after a month. Rounding out the top five was The Boss Baby, which grossed another $4.6 million, a 23% dip from last weekend that gives the family movie hit a $162.3 million domestic cume, making it the fifteenth biggest DreamWorks Animation title of all-time. Fellow March 2017 family movie Beauty And The Beast also held well this frame, adding $3.8 million (a tiny 24% dip from last weekend) to gross $493.1 million domestically.

The real story of the weekend has gotta be the major over-performance of Lowriders, which grossed $2.4 million this weekend at 295 locations for an incredible per-theater average of $8,180. That gives it the third best limited release opening weekend of 2017. The few box office predictions articles I saw bring this movie up over the weekend didn't even have Lowriders cracking $800,000, let alone $1 million, so this $2.4 million bow really is incredible. It's a foregone conclusion that BH Tilt will be expanding it further theaters next weekend. Chalk this one up as yet another win (following Split and Get Out) for producer Jason Blum in 2017!

Debuting to far less stupendous numbers in limited release was the Doug Liman war drama The Wall, which bowed to only $891,590 at 541 locations for a middling per-theater average of only $1,648. Chalk this one up to a more middling marketing campaign and competition from a large number of higher-profile action fare in the marketplace. In terms of other Amazon Studios releases, The Wall got the second widest opening release theater count for a feature from the studio (only behind the 783 theaters that played The Neon Demon) and is the second biggest opening weekend behind only the $1.1 million bow of Chi-Raq.

On the limited release side of things, The Lovers grossed another $140,553 from 23 theaters for a per-theater average of $6,111 for a 10-day domestic total of $229,375. Newbie Paris Can Wait grossed $101,825 from 4 theaters, a solid opening weekend that gives it a per-theater average of $25,456. Chuck added $79,190 from 39 theaters for a per-theater average of $2,030. The Wedding Plan bowed to $33,040 at 8 locations for a per-theater average of $4,130.  Absolutely Anything
and a re-release of the Andrei Tarkovsky movie Solaris also debuted in limited release this weekend but there's no word yet on their box office.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $120.9 million, a middle-of-the-road sum as far as second weekends of May are concerned. Over the course of 14 days, May 2017 has grossed $405.3 million. I'm doubtful the month can crack $1 billion (making it only the third May in the 2010's, following May 2010 and May 2016 to do just that) but maybe Alien: Covenant, Baywatch and the new Pirates movie will overperform and prove me wrong.