Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Tops The Box Office While Geostorm Gets Soaked, Only The Brave Goes Up In Smoke And Snowman Gets Cold Shoulder

October 2017 continued its middling run at the box office as Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween topped the box office with $21.6 million. That's the second-lowest grossing opening weekend for a Madea movie, but that's less worrisome than it might be for other franchise since it was in close proximity to other Madea movies. Plus, going down only 24% from your predecessors opening weekend is a dip many much more expensive sequels from 2016 and 2017 would have loved to have. Going down from the $28.5 million bow of the first Halloween-themed Madea movie was inevitable given how the marketing for the sequel failed to offer much new to differentiate itself from its predecessor aside from references to recent horror movie hits Get Out and It. The first Madea Halloween movie was one of the leggier entries in the franchise as it did 2.6 times its opening weekend. I doubt the sequel will hold that well but it might just become the eighth Madea movie (out of eight) to cross $50 million domestically if it doesn't plummet in the weeks ahead.



The heavily-delayed once set for a March 25, 2016 release date oh so long ago, Geostorm opened to only $13.3 million this weekend. That's about 9% below the $14.5 million opening weekend of Volcano from 1997, to give a comparison for just how bad of a debut this is just in terms of disaster movies alone. In terms of opening weekends for movies Gerard Butler appeared in, it's 1% ahead of the $13.2 million bow of Nim's Island and behind the $14.1 million debut of Gods Of Egypt. It's no secret why Geostorm went so off the rails financially given the lackluster marketing campaign Warner Bros gave the project that failed to differentiate it from past disaster movies.

Last weekends box office victor Happy Death Day tumbled 64% this weekend for a $9.3 million second weekend. That's a hefty drop that can be partially attributed to Friday The 13th inflating its opening weekend grosses. The $5 million budgeted film has now grossed a terrific $40.6 million in ten days. Meanwhile, Blade Runner 2049 is officially not gonna hit $100 million domestically as it fell another 53% this weekend for a $7.1 million third weekend and a 17-day total of only $74 million.

Only The Brave rounded out the top five with a lackluster $6 million bow. That's the second lowest-grossing wide release opening weekend ever for Miles Teller, only Bleed For This has a worse debut with a $2.3 million bow. On a $38 million budget, this is a disastrous debut for a film that tried to be the newest movie to appeal heavily to flyover states but ended up being the newest Logan Lucky rather than the newest American Sniper at the domestic box office. Poor Taylor Kitsch, dude really can't catch a financial break.

The Foreigner went down 58% in its second weekend of release to gross another $5.4 million, meaning this Jackie Chan action movie has now grossed $22.8 million, making it the fifth biggest movie ever for STX Entertainment.  Meanwhile, It kept on chugging with another $3.5 million, a 42% drop from last weekend, for an outstanding $320.2 million domestic total so far.

Every single one of this weekends five new wide releases, sans Madea, bombed and maybe the biggest dud of the bunch was The Snowman, which opened to only $3.4 million. Sans the $1.5 million debut of Jem And The Holograms two October's ago, you'd have go all the way back to the $2.2 million November 2006 bow of Let's Go To Prison to find a worse opening weekend for a wide release that was released by Universal Pictures. This is a ghastly debut that serves as the worst wide release opening weekend ever for Michael Fassbender.

Meanwhile, American Made dropped 42% to gross another $3.1 million for a domestic total so far of $45.5 million. Rounding out the top ten was Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which dropped 44% and grossed another $3 million for a $94.5 million domestic cume that puts it within spitting distance of $100 million domestically. Right outside the top ten was The Mountain Between Us, which grossed a measly $2.7 million, a 52% drop from last weekend, for a 17-day domestic total of only $25.5 million. It's a crapshoot at this point if this one squeaks past the $30 million domestic mark.

The last of this weekends new wide releases was Same Kind Of Different As Me, a new Christian movie that debuted to only $2.5 million. Even among solely the Christian movie subgenre, this is a pretty weak result that puts it 10% behind the opening weekend of Little Boy despite having a lot more star power in its cast and opening in more theaters. Maybe Paramount Pictures was on to something when they dumped this finished title onto faith-based indie studio Pure Flix.

Lots of arthouse titles to get through this weekend, so let's get to it. Victoria And Abdul continued to perform admirably, grossing another $2.1 million at 1,060 theaters for a per-theater average of $2,038 and a domestic total so far of $14.8 million. In its second weekend, Marshall didn't add or subtract theaters and grossed another $1.5 million, which is a 49% drop from its opening weekend and brings its 10-day domestic total to only an underwhelming $5.4 million. Indian comedy Golmaal Again grossed $1 million at 265 locations for a per-theater average of $3,807. The Florida Project expanded its theater count again to 112 locations and grossed $636,615 for a per-theater average of $5,684. This Sean Baker film has now grossed $1.3 million domestically. Loving Vincent continued its quietly strong box office run with $391,974 from 114 locations for a per-theater average of $3,438 and a domestic total so far of $1.3 million. In its second weekend, Professor Marston And The Wonder Women plummeted 69% to gross another $229,000 for an abysmal domestic total of only $1.3 million.

And now for a pair of arthouse titles that stumbled mightily in major theater expansions. First up, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House went into 332 theaters and only grossed $192,590 for a per-theater average of only $580. This one's only grossed $491,695 domestically. Breathe also struggled as it expanded into 315 locations and grossed only $155,925 for a per-theater average of only $495. This Andy Serkis directed feature has now grossed only $187,718, and not only is it well on track to become Bleecker Street's lowest-grossing title ever (sans Beasts Of No Nation), it's also looking to become their first movie ever to gross under $1 million (again, sans Beasts Of No Nation). Also facing financial turmoil was Goodbye, Christopher Robin, which expanded to 61 theaters in its second weekend of release and only grossed $153,000 for a per-theater average of only $2,508 and a domestic total of $232,505.

Debuting in limited release was The Killing Of A Sacred Deer which grossed $114,585 at 4 locations for a per-theater average of $28,646. That's a decent launch, though it's doubtful it reaches anywhere near the $8.7 million bow of director Yorgos Lanthimos last movie The Lobster, which was, like Sacred Deer, also released by A24. Human Flow grossed $82,000 from 28 locations for a per-theater average of $2,929 in its second weekend, which means it has now grossed $150,838 in ten days. Also premiering in limited release this weekend was the new Todd Haynes movie Wonderstruck, which grossed an only OK $68,762 from 4 theaters for a per-theater average of only $17,191. Finally, BPM (Beats Per Minutes) debuted this weekend to $8,721 from 2 theaters for a per-theater average of $4,361.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $81.3 million, one of the lower top 12 grosses for a frame at this time of the year. For comparison's sake, this is the lowest gross seen for this time of the year in ten years. Chalk that up to so many newbie titles, like all but one of this weekend's new releases, failing to leave an impact while would-be blockbusters like Blade Runner 2049 and The LEGO Ninjago Movie that could have propped up lackluster box office from smaller films have found themselves plagued by underwhelming domestic box office. October 2017 has so far grossed only $426 million, and with only nine days left in the month and none of next weekends new releases looking like box office hits in the making, it looks unlikely October 2017 will soar above the $530 million mark, which at best, would not only make this the lowest-grossing October of the decade so far but also the lowest-grossing October in ten years. We shall see where we stand next week...