For the second weekend in a row, Warner Bros. held the top two spots at the domestic box office, and just like last weekend, the feature in second place was The Meg, which fell a solid 38% this weekend, giving it another $13 million and a current domestic total of $105.3 million. This blockbuster hit looks like it'll be ending its domestic box office run just under or over $140 million and its worldwide box office haul north of $500 million (it just cracked $400 million worldwide this weekend) a much much much bigger box office haul than anyone could have expected even a month ago.
In third place was the biggest of this weekend's newcomers, The Happytime Murders. The long in development puppet comedy debuted to a measly $10 million this weekend, and given that these are the box office estimates, it's very likely it'll end up below that $10 million mark when the box office actuals come in. While that's the fourth biggest opening weekend for a puppet movie, it came in 18% behind the opening weekend of Team America: World Police from 14 years ago despite having bigger live-action stars to accompany the puppet characters. Speaking of live-action stars, this is easily the worst opening weekend ever for Melissa McCarthy, dethroning the $17.8 million bow of Life of The Party for that honor. Considering The Happytime Murders cost $47 million to make, this is a disastrous bow for struggling STX Films, with this Brian Henson directed project being the third lowest opening weekend for one of their titles that opened in over 3,000 locations (only The Circle and Hardcore Henry fared worse). Happytime Murders is probably looking at a final domestic haul just below $25 million or basically what Melissa McCarthy's 2016 film The Boss did in its opening weekend.
The fact that wide release newcomers like The Happytime Murders stumbled so badly at least meant a whole bunch of the holdovers this weekend actually held impressively well, including Mission: Impossible - Fallout which dipped just 25% for a fifth-weekend haul of $8 million for a domestic gross of $193.9 million. It should become only the eighth movie of 2018 to cross $200 million at the domestic box office by next weekend. Also holding well this frame was Christopher Robin, which dipped just 28% for another $6.3 million and a domestic gross to date of $77.6 million, taking it past the lifetime domestic gross of Pete's Dragon. In seventh place we find Alpha, which dropped 46% this weekend for a second-weekend take of $5.6 million for a domestic gross of just $20.1 million after ten days. Holding quite well this frame was BlacKkKlansman, which eased just 27% for a third-weekend haul of $5.3 million and a domestic total to date of $32 million.
All week, entertainment news outlets have been relaying news about the death of Global Road Films, a movie studio run by Donald Tang that merged the studio Open Road Films (the label responsible for releasing Nightcrawler and Spotlight domestically) and IM Global into something new. The studio only got to release three films before the banks took over the studio this week and now Global Road Films is basically dead in the water and selling off upcoming titles. Looks like this weekend's second new wide release, A.X.L., will be their last ever movie and it was not a good way to end the studio with only a $2.9 million bow from 1,710 locations for a per theater average of about $1,705. The story of how Global Road Films went under in such a short period of time is far more interesting than any of the anemic marketing materials for A.X.L., which tried to sell a family movie about a terrifying looking robot dog, can't imagine why kids weren't rushing out to see that. At least this one allowed Thomas Jane to appear in a wide release movie for the first time since The Mist in November 2007 (this does not count his hysterical Scott Pilgrim vs. The World cameo).
And now we come to a part of the weekend box office where we have three Sony Pictures releases in a row! First up was Slender Man, which fell 42% for a third-weekend gross of $2.7 million and a domestic gross of $25.4 million. Then we have Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, which dipped 33% this weekend to add another $2.5 million to a domestic cume that now stands at $158.6 million while The Equalizer 2 went down just 30% this weekend to gross another $2 million for a $98 million domestic haul. Looks like this one will get past $100 million domestically in no time! Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again fell 44% this frame to add $1.9 to a domestic gross that now stands at a great $115.2 million. Dipping 31% this frame was Ant-Man And The Wasp, which grossed another $1.8 million for a $211.4 million domestic gross. Fellow Disney superhero movie holdover Incredibles 2 inched ever closer to becoming the first ever animated movie to gross over $600 million domestically (it'll get past that mark next weekend if Disney/PIXAR do their annual tradition of drastically expanding the theater count of their summer titles over Labor Day weekend) by grossing another $1.6 million this weekend, a 28% dip from last weekend and pushing its domestic haul to $597 million.
Bleecker Street continued its streak of poorly handling the release of its 2018 movies (man, did you see how badly they bungled the releases of Disobedience, Leave No Trace and McQueen? That was, like, Sony Pictures Classics levels of incompetence!) with Papillon, a Charlie Hunnam/Rami Malek remake of the classic film of the same name that grossed only $1.1 million from 544 locations for a per-theater average of $2,115. Despite playing in so many locations (though it was 56 shy of being a proper wide release), this is only the seventh biggest opening weekend ever for Bleecker Street and a poor showing overall that can likely be attributed to a dearth of marketing and mixed reviews. This one will end its run in between $2.5 and $3 million, an anemic total for the film.
Puzzle expanded into 265 locations and grossed only $372,433 for a per-theater average of $1,405, a not great result that gives this title a domestic haul of $1.2 million. Faring far better this frame was Searching, which bowed in 9 locations and grossed an excellent $360,000 for a per-theater average of $40,000, the eighth best-limited release opening weekend per-theater average of 2018. It shall be interesting to see how this one performs once it expands into 1,100 locations over Labor Day weekend next weekend. Meanwhile, The Wife fared well in expanding into 18 locations as it grossed $217,382 for a per-theater average of $12,077 and a domestic gross of $380,112. Blaze did OK in expanding into 7 locations this weekend as it grossed $51,286 for a per-theater average of $7,327 and a domestic gross of $104,476. We The Animals did not fare so well in its own theatrical expansion as it went into 12 locations and grossed just $48,728 for a per-theater average of $4,061 and a domestic gross of $138,232.
No word yet on how newbie limited releases Support The Girls and Blue Iguana fared this weekend, I'll update this piece once some numbers (either box office estimates or actuals come in). In terms of limited release newcomers though, we do have box office figures for The Bookshop, which grossed $48,000 from 4 locations for a per-theater average of $12,000 while a theatrical re-release of Andrei Rublev took in $12,679 (a lower opening than the re-release of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker from last year) from 2 locations for a per-theater average of $6,490. Finally, weirdly, there isn't a full weekend box office figure for the last of this weekend's wide release newcomers, Beautifully Broken, which bowed in 651 locations this weekend. Weirdly though, we do have Friday and Saturday box office numbers for the title, which show that the feature grossed $453,605 in its first two days of release, which isn't great at all for a movie opening in wide release.
The top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $89.6 million, a decent haul for this time of the year and up 76% from this same weekend last year when The Hitman's Bodyguard ruled the box office again.
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