In second place was the biggest of this weekend's newcomers, 12 Strong, which debuted at the domestic box office with the kind of performance best described as "decent". Grossing $16.5 million this weekend, this is the biggest debut for a Chris Hemsworth movie that doesn't have him playing either Thor or The Huntsman. This is also slightly ahead of the $16.1 million opening weekend of 13 Hours and, on a $35 million budget, it also looks like this will be the first movie for producer Jerry Bruckheimer (12 Strong is only the fourth non-Pirates movies he's produced this decade) in a long while to make it's budget back in the near future. Why didn't 12 Strong go higher in its opening weekend? I'd personally chalk that up to the fact that the true story it's based on isn't as well-known as, say, Chris Kyle's exploits while ads that made it look derivative of American Sniper and Lone Survivor could have also hurt it. To be fair though, for a $35 million budgeted R-rated action movie, this is an OK debut overall that could result in a domestic total just over or under $40 million.
Handily the biggest surprise of the weekend was Den of Thieves, which exceeded past expectations that had the film grossing only $7-9 million this weekend to actually gross $15.3 million in its opening weekend. That's the seventh biggest opening weekend for a live-action film starring Gerard Butler and the fourth biggest opening weekend ever for STX Entertainment despite getting their fourth-lowest theater count ever for one of their movies opening in wide release. Concerns that this and 12 Strong would cannibalize each other ended up being wrong as Den of Thieves clearly held it's own and made it the fourth straight domestic box office hit for STX Entertainment, which may have finally found it's footing as a financially lucrative movie studio. The fact that their recent string of successes are all oriented around movies starring either women or people of color should not be looked at as a coincidence.
The Post dropped 37% in it's seocnd frame, a larger second-weekend drop than Bridges of Spies (26%) and Hidden Figures (8%) but otherwise is a fine hold that gives the project another $12.1 million for a $45.1 million. Just how many Oscar nominations this movie scores on Tuesday will determine where it ends up at the domestic box office. The box office performance of The Greatest Showman continued to astound as it razzled and dazzled it's way to another $12 million, a meager 11% dip from last weekend that brings it up to an impressive $113.4 million domestic gross. Already the tenth biggest musical in history (without adjusting for inflation), it looks like The Greatest Showman is gonna make a run at surpassing La La Land's $151.1 million domestic haul to become the biggest original musical of all-time at the domestic box office. Looks like all those positive reviews and strong audience word-of-mouth are working in Paddington 2's favor as it dipped only 25% this weekend to gross another $8.2 million, a notably better hold than the 35% drop the first Paddington movie saw in its opening weekend. With only $25 million in ten days, Paddington 2 still has a ways to go before becoming a domestic box office hit, but with no other family movies out over the next ten days, it should continue to hold nicely in the weeks ahead. If it can manage to get past $50 million domestically, that would be a decent sum for a movie that's generated plenty of successful box office overseas.
Dropping 51% in its second weekend was The Commuter, which grossed another $6.6 million to bring it's domestic total up to $25.7 million. Right behind that Liam Neeson thriller was Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which dropped 44% to gross another $6.5 million which takes the blockbuster film past the $600 million mark domestically to a $604.2 million domestic cume. Holding much better than past early January horror fare is Insidious: The Last Key, which dropped 52% this frame to gross another $5.9 million for a $58.7 million domestic total, making it the second biggest Insidious film of all-time.
Rounding out the top ten was Forever My Girl, which did solid business in its opening weekend, grossing $4.7 million from 1,115 locations. That's the biggest opening weekend ever for distributor Roadside Attractions, surpassing the $3.5 million bow of The Conspirator for that honor. For a film that cost only $3.5 million to make, this isn't a bad haul at all and gives Roadside Attractions a much-needed sleeper hit after a dismal 2017. Meanwhile, Proud Mary dropped 63% from its opening weekend to gross another $3.6 million for an underwhelming domestic total of $16.9 million. Phantom Thread expanded into wide release this weekend and grossed $3.3 million from 896 locations for a per-theater average of $3,761, a better wide release opening weekend than the one experienced by Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 feature The Master. Phantom Thread has now unspooled $6.1 million domestically.
Pitch Perfect 3 became the 33rd movie of 2017 to cross $100 million domestically this weekend as it dropped 48% from last weekend to gross another $3.1 million for a domestic total of $100.6 million.
Darkest Hour kept on chugging as it dipped 31% this weekend to gross another $3 million for a domestic total of $41.1 million. Looks like this one will end up being only the tenth Focus Features movie ever to cross $50 million domestically. In its first weekend in wide release, I, Tonya grossed $3 million (a 10% drop from last weekend), bringing it up to a $14.6 million domestic total. The Shape of Water has quietly been doing solid business in wide release over the past month and it continued to do so this weekend as it dipped only 22% and grossed another $2.2 million for a $30.2 million. Fellow Fox Searchlight drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri also continued to do fine box office as it grossed another $2 million (a 20% drop from last weekend) for a $32 million domestic total.
Coco, in its tenth weekend of release, grossed another $1.9 million (a 42% drop from last weekend), which pushes the features domestic haul to $200.7 million, making it only the thirteenth movie of 2017 to cross $200 million domestically and making it the fourteenth PIXAR movie to make over $200 million domestically. Finally expanding into wide release this weekend was Call Me By Your Name and grossed only $1.5 million from 815 theaters for a per-theater average of only $1,847. I had a hunch Sony Pictures Classics had waited too long to expand this one's theater count significantly, and two months after it first debuted, the buzz had cooled off on the title to a notable degree. A lack of marketing regarding its impending expansion into wide release also hurt it considerably. I had no clue this movie was expanding into wide release until this past Tuesday, and considering I'm a fanatic about the release patterns of new movies, I can only imagine how clueless general moviegoers were about this one going into wide release. Some high-profile Oscar nominations on Tuesday will help this one expand its domestic gross beyond its current sum of $9.2 million but this is still a seriously disappointing result for the highly-buzzed about movie. Of course Sony Pictures Classics would somehow botch the release of such an acclaimed movie...
Lady Bird dipped 25% this weekend to gross another $1.3 million from 675 locations for a per-theater average of $1,958 for a domestic total of $39.1 million. Hostiles actually did some pretty solid business this weekend as it expanded into 49 theaters, grossing $392,000 for a per-theater average of $8,000. Scoring your best per-theater average five weeks into your limited release run is a promising sign regarding audience word-of-mouth. It'll be interesting to see how this title, which has grossed $1.3 million to date, plays when it finally expands into wide release (3,000 theaters to be exact!) on Friday. Finally, GKIDS scored a rare box office hit this weekend with Mary And The Witch's Flower, the debut feature from Japanese animation house Studio Ponoc. This animated feature grossed $329,097 from special screenings projected by Fathom Events in 161 theaters (though apparently, it played in 573 theaters at some point over the weekend) and has managed to gross $1.4 million domestically factoring in screenings that occurred on Thursday. Not only did this title score the biggest opening weekend ever for GKIDS, it's $1.4 million gross over the past four days already makes it the bigger titles ever for GKIDS. GKIDS has struggled to get box office results that match their success at garnering Best Animated Feature nominations at the Academy Awards on a yearly basis. The fact that Mary And The Witch's Flower was the first time one of their films was put out in more than 100 theaters should be a sign to them that non-traditional animated fare can make big bucks in the U.S., you just need to make sure it's in enough theaters so that people can see it and then market it enough so that audiences are aware of its existence. I have a hunch these sort of successful box office figures will be leading to GKIDS trying out this release pattern again in the near future.
The top 12 movies this weekend grossed $114.1 million, which is below average for box office frames at this time of the year and 9% below from the same weekend last year when Split surpassed expectations and topped the box office.
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