This weekend the folks at Downton Abbey hit the box office with a double whammy: a film that is both a.) a period drama and b.) a property with a built-in fan base. The Focus Features flick managed to best not one, but two cinema superstars with a domestic haul of $31 million over 3079 screens—close to 400 less screens than Ad Astra and 600 less than Rambo: Last Blood. Per CNN, it’s the highest-grossing opening for Focus Features. Really not bad for a film that was only projected to rake in $20 million.
Following box office champ Maggie Smith is the Brad Pitt starrer Ad Astra, which pocketed $19.2 million in its first weekend. The number falls right in line with the experts’ projections, which predicted a generous window of $15-20 million. Rambo: Last Blood (which Ignatiy Vishnevetsky dubbed “a joyless film”) trailed in third-place with $19 million—a bit of a trek from its $50 million budget. Rounding out the top 5 is It Chapter Two and Hustlers, both adding another $17 million to their total gross. All in all, a box office weekend made exciting thanks mostly to a gaggle of British aristocrats.
There is no viable competition on deck for the upcoming weekend (unless Abominable pulls a miraculous upset), so we’ll just get ourselves nice and settled in for the renewed Joker discourse when the film is widely released in two weeks.
For more detailed box office insight, visit Box Office Mojo.