Weekend Box Office: For a movie based on a Pepsi commercial, Uncle Drew is doing great
The top two films at the domestic box office this weekend should come as no surprise. Just like last week, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is currently the No. 1 movie in America, adding $60 million to a worldwide haul that’s now only $67 million from crossing the celebrated $1 billion mark. And just like it did last week, Incredibles 2 came in at No. 2, making $45.5 million in its third week in U.S. theaters.
But that’s poised to change: Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom’s 59.5 percent drop-off in its second week is awfully steep, and with The First Purge debuting on July 4 (people really do love those Purge movies) and Ant-Man And The Wasp premiering two days later, the age of dinosaurs at the U.S. box office looks like it’s about to end—until the next one of these movies comes along, at least. (Incredibles 2's drop-off was a mild 43.3 percent, so expect that one to hang around a little longer than Jurassic World 2.)
And it’s not just the imminent arrival of a new Marvel movie foreshadowing a change on the box-office charts. Two relatively low-profile films made better-than-expected debuts last weekend, as Sicario: Day Of The Soldado rode a wave of intense timeliness to No. 3 with $19 million and Uncle Drew (No. 4, $15.5 million) did surprisingly well for a movie based on a series of Pepsi commercials. Both of those films got mixed reviews from critics; perhaps because they’re a self-selecting group, Uncle Drew did better with audiences, earning a glowing “A” CinemaScore from viewers who enjoyed Shaq’s “few genuine notes of melancholy” more than our own A.A. Dowd. (He gave it a “C.”)
In the specialty market, documentaries continue to reign as the Mister Rogers biopic Won’t You Be My Neighbor? rounded out the Top 10 for the second weekend in a row. (It’s made $7.5 million at the box office so far.) The week’s winner by the per-screen average we’re always crowing about was also a documentary: The purportedly shocking Three Identical Strangers which made a healthy $32,605 on each of its five limited-release screens and landed at No. 24. Leave No Trace, Debra Granik’s critically-acclaimed follow-up to the also critically acclaimed Winter’s Bone, came out slightly ahead at No. 20, though, mostly because it played on nine screens instead of five.
For more detailed numbers, please visit Box Office Mojo.