Weekend Box Office: All hail Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil
The competition this past weekend was kind of stiff, with two major studio sequels and a third-week juggernaut vying for the top spot. The weekend ultimately belonged to Angelina Jolie and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil with an opening haul of just $36 million. Disney’s dark sequel didn’t land as strong of an opening as its predecessor, which earned $70 million its first weekend, but it was enough to knock the smile off of Joker after two weeks in the number one spot. Joaquin Phoenix and friends still managed to add $29.2 million to a steadily growing stack this week, bringing the domestic total to $247.2 million and the global gross to $737.5 million. It’s currently on track to becoming the highest-earning R-rated film of all time, a title currently held by the Merc With A Mouth, Deadpool.
Coming in third this weekend is another sequel, Zombieland 2: Double Tap, with $26.7 million. Arriving a decade after the original film, this is fairly on par with the opening numbers for Zombieland back in 2009, which garnered $29 million on opening weekend. So kudos to the Columbia Pictures zom-com for not siphoning too much of its fan base during the long wait, even if the return was a bit outdated in its execution. Here’s what our own Katie Rife had to say about the film:
Zombieland: Double Tap is very much told from Columbus’ perspective, and it’s here that its script really starts to feel stale. You don’t realize how much pop-cultural gender politics have changed in the past 10 years until you’re sitting in a theater watching a pair of cool girl/dumb blonde stereotypes fight over a man who, although their venomous jealousy would lead you to believe as much, is not the last man on Earth.
Rounding out the top five are the animated reboot The Addams Family in fourth-place and the time-bending Will Smith starrer Gemini Man in the No. 5 spot. The First Family Of Creepiness lured an additional $16 million in its second week and had the biggest theater presence with 4102 screens. With a reported $40 million budget, a $56 million domestic gross to-date, and a sequel already secured, it’s pretty much nothing but roses (or whatever the goth equivalent may be) from here on out. Gemini Man, on the other hand, only earned 8.5 million, bringing the grand total thus far to $36.5 million—a far cry from the $138 million used to make the film. We wonder if Paramount has had a chance to revisit the drawing board yet. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to put Smith’s son Jaden in some clever makeup? Was that idea even on the table?
The Lighthouse and Jojo Rabbit both had sizable limited openings this weekend. The black-and-white drama starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson played in eight theaters and achieved a strong $52,471 per theater average. Jojo Rabbit only had five screens under its belt and still managed to rake in $350,000, averaging $70,000 per theater. Even though it dropped three places to No. 9 this weekend, Hustlers still has a reason to celebrate: The indie stand-out with a modest $20 million price tag has officially crossed the $100 million box office mark, making it STX Entertainment’s third film to accomplish the milestone. This should hopefully lead to way more opportunities for director Lorene Scafaria, who has now proven that she can create gems with few resources. Because that’s how this works, right?
For more in-depth analysis, check out Box Office Mojo.