Weekend Wrap-Up
By Tim Briody
September 15, 2019
BoxOfficeProphets.com
IT: Chapter Two holds on for another weekend, falling 55% from its opening to $40.7 million, giving the King sequel $153.8 million in two weekends. While it was immediately apparent that Chapter Two would not match the heights of IT (the latter had $218.8 million after two weekends), it's all good news here for Warner Bros., as this is essentially found money even with the considerably higher price tag.
Second place goes to the big opener of the weekend, Hustlers. Scoring an impressive $33.2 million (that's a whole lotta dollar bills), the based on a true story crime thriller starring Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, and Julia Stiles, as well as Cardi B and Lizzo, topped IT: Chapter Two on Friday. Audiences apparently were expecting something else, giving it a B- CinemaScore, even though critics thought it was great (88% Fresh), many giving J.Lo the best reviews of her career and perhaps creating some early minor Oscar buzz.
Hustlers is the biggest opening weekend in STX Entertainment's history, and if it can find legs, aims to be the biggest film in the company's history, which is currently Bad Moms with $113.2 million. For more good news, Hustlers only cost $20 million to make and it's already made that back. It's also nice to see when a film with a predominately female, predominately minority cast is a hit.
After that, there's only two minor things to talk about in the rest of the top ten so it's the long awaited return of the lightning round!
Angel has Fallen gets to $60 million with $4.4 million (down 27%) in its fourth weekend, while Good Boys adds $4.2 million (down 22%) in its fifth weekend and has $73.3 million. The Lion King earns another $3.5 million (down just 18%) to give it $533.9 million in nine weekends. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw adds $2.7 million (down 27%) to give it $168.3 million after seven weekends, and faith-based entry Overcomer earns $2.7 million (down 26%) to give it $28.9 million in four weekends.
The Goldfinch also opened this weekend and placed eighth with $2.6 million. Based on a novel, the movie stars failed palindrome Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman among others. Kim Hollis hated the book and everybody hated the movie, where it has a 24% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. It also cost $45 million to make, so this is a huge disaster for Warner Bros., so good thing they're making money off Chapter Two.
Mostly by default, ninth place goes to The Peanut Butter Falcon, earning $1.9 million (down 10%). Expanding slowly, it's got $15 million in six weekends in theaters. Starring Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson, the film is a modern retelling of Huckleberry Finn, and has been rated one of the best films of the year, scoring 95% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. It still declined when expanding this weekend to 1,490 theaters, so it's not going to make much more money, but it did only cost $6 million to make, so it's going down a winner for Roadside Attractions.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold wraps us up this week with $1.8 million (down 21%) and $56.7 million in six weekends.
The top 12 films earned $101.3 million this weekend, which was just ahead of last year's $97.4 million when The Predator opened with $24.6 million.
Next weekend we get the opposite of Hustlers, in the testosterone fueled Rambo: Last Blood, starring a 97-year-old Sylvester Stallone. Also, we get Brad Pitt in the science fiction entry Ad Astra, plus a feature film adaptation of Downton Abbey.