Topping the box office this weekend was Dunkirk, which opened to $50.5 million, an excellent debut far above expectations that had this one pegged at $35-40 million. This is the third biggest opening weekend ever for a World War II movie, only behind Captain America: The First Avenger and Pearl Harbor and about 6% ahead of the opening weekend of Christopher Nolan's last movie, Interstellar! Interestingly, it's only 13% behind the adjusted for inflation opening weekend ($57.9 million) of Saving Private Ryan, so there's plenty of impressive statistics to back this one up.
To be honest, I was surprised people were so conservative in their box office projections for this one over the past week. Yeah, a bunch of movies have underperformed this summer but World War II movies have a solid box office track record, Christopher Nolan has an even better financial track record and the movie's marketing (which started about a year ago with a teaser trailer on Suicide Squad), emphasizing it as a war movie thriller, just helped make it stand out in a summer full of big-budget sequels. Christopher Nolan movies typically hold on quite strong at the box office, and considering well-received adult dramas tend to hold better than blockbusters, not to mention August 2017 is devoid of other similar big event movies, Dunkirk should likely get to at least $170 million domestically, a massively impressive number.
You know who else was putting up impressive box office this weekend? Girls Trip. The rave-reviewed comedy (I haven't seen it yet myself) grossed a super impressive $30.3 million, about $200,000 ahead of director Malcolm D. Lee's last Universal comedy, The Best Man Holiday. If anyone's shocked this one managed to rake up big bucks, then I'm just gonna assume you're living on the Moon. Girls Trip had a strong marketing campaign that had been running for months, a prime release date that made it the only big release that was specifically aimed at women in the marketplace and a dearth of successful comedies this summer that made people hungry for a yukfest. Don't also be shocked if this one ends up holding on through August to crack $100 million domestically, but for now, this is an amazing opening weekend for this $19 million budgeted movie.
Coming in third place was Spider-Man: Homecoming, which grossed another $22 million this weekend, a 50% drop from last weekend, similar to the 48% drop fellow July MCU release Ant-Man had in its own third weekend. Homecoming has now made $251.7 million in 17 days and will surpass the entire domestic gross of The Amazing Spider-Man by the end of the week. In fourth place was War For The Planet Of The Apes, which fell 63% to gross $20.4 million in its second frame. Given how positive word-of-mouth on the title seemed to be, as well as the fact that it wasn't anywhere near as frontloaded as other blockbusters this summer, this is a most surprising drop, especially since its predecessor dropped only 49% (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes) and 50% (Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes). With $97.7 million in ten days, War will likely hold on better from here, but it's unlikely to exceed $140 million domestically, making it easily the lowest grossing entry in this new Planet Of The Apes trilogy.
Rounding out the top five was the other new wide release of the weekend, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, which opened to an anemic $17.020 million this weekend. Interestingly, that puts it only $11,000 behind the opening weekend of The Fifth Element twenty years (not adjusting for inflation of course) and makes it the second biggest opening weekend ever for struggling mini-studio STX Films. This movie, which carries a $209.1 million pricetag, is a French movie that was always predominately made for European audiences who are far more familiar with the source material, so it's understandable to imagine the U.S. was never thought to be the primary market for the movie.
That having been said, you don't give a movie that budget and you especially don't release it in 3,553 U.S./Canada theaters without hoping it garners a notable amount of cash domestically and Valerian still struggled mightily financially. Chalk that up to a domestic marketing campaign that failed to convey any characters or plot people could get invested in. That teaser trailer was indeed amazing, but subsequent trailers actually got way more vague than the first teaser, failing to entice audiences with interesting characters or plto details. Opening it the same weekend as Dunkirk as well as directly after Spider-Man: Homecoming and War For The Planet Of The Apes only furthered its problems. It'd be a shocker if Valerian cracked $50 million domestically and unless it really goes crazy overseas, it's doubtful this one ends up being all that profitable of a venture.
Grossing another $12.7 million this weekend was Despicable Me 3, which is only a tiny 34% dip from last weekend. That brings its domestic gross to a robust $213.3 million. Looks like this one will likely surpass the $251.5 million gross of the first movie. Even in the face of three new releases, Baby Driver had its best weekend-to-weekend drop yet, going down 31% to gross another $6 million. Considering it's grossed $84.2 million currently, barring a massive plummet in the next two or three weeks, looks like this one will be the first Edgar Wright movie to cross $100 million. The Big Sick held solidly in its second weekend of wide release, going down 34% to gross $5 million for a current domestic total of $24.5 million. I'd wager this one will end its run just above or below $35 million.
At this point, nothing will be able to stop Wonder Woman, I'm convinced of this. Going down only 32%, Diana Prince grossed another $4.6 million, taking it to a $389 million domestic cume that makes it the largest domestic grosser of the summer. This movie's performance really is amazing and it looks like it's headed for a $420-425 million. Wish Upon took in another $2.4 million, a 54% drop from its opening weekend. That's a slightly better second-weekend hold than typical horror movies but with only $10.5 million in ten days, this one's gonna need more than that to be financially lucrative.
Not a whole lot was going on in the limited release circuit this weekend. Maudie grossed $390,198 at 233 locations for a per-theater average of $1,675 and a total domestic gross of $4 million. Just as an aside, The Beguiled made $251,600 this weekend to bring its domestic cume just past $10 million, $10.1 million to be precise. This makes it only the third Sofia Coppola movie to gross over $10 million domestically. The Little Hours grossed $162,530, a 44% drop from last weekend, at 114 locations for a per-theater average of $1,426. In its third weekend, A Ghost Story grossed an additional $141,438 at 43 locations for a per-theater average of $3,289 and a current domestic total of $480,478. Finally, Landline debuted this weekend to $52,336 at 4 locations for a per-theater average of $13,084.
The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed $174.1 million, the sixth biggest 29th weekend in any given year. 23 days into the month, July 2017 has grossed $829.2 million and should handily cross $1 billion next weekend.
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