Last week’s box office numbers were especially lousy, and while things perked up slightly during the extended Labor Day weekend, it’s still pretty far from good news for the movie industry. As noted by Box Office Mojo, the top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of $51.5 million, which is the lowest number for the top 12 in 17 years. That was partly because there wasn’t a hot new release that people had to see this weekend, unless you count the possibly nonexistent Tulip Fever or the special IMAX preview of ABC’s The Inhumans. And neither of those made a whole lot of money.
As for what did make money, the big winners this weekend were once again The Hitman’s Bodyguard and Annabelle: Creation, making this the third weekend in a row that those two movies have dominated the (otherwise pathetic) charts. The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a movie that millions of people will someday settle for watching when it pops up on FX or whatever, pulled in just over $10.5 million to land at No. 1 for the third week in a row. That’s a slight uptick from last week, but it’s not enough to help the movie catch up to the nearly $90 million total gross of second-place finisher Annabelle: Creation. The Conjuring spin-off added $7.5 million to its haul this weekend, but its numbers are probably going to drop off quickly when a certain scary clown shows up to dethrone the scary doll.
Further down the list are Wind River (which got a huge boost from last week for a $6.2 million weekend gross) at No. 3 and last week’s surprise contender Leap! ($4.8 million) at No. 4, narrowly beating out Steven Soderbergh’s redneck heist movie Logan Lucky ($4.4 million) and Christopher Nolan’s war epic Dunkirk ($4.3 million). That makes Dunkirk’s total gross nearly $179 million, which still pales in comparison to Spider-Man: Homecoming’s $324 million ($3.6 this weekend) and Despicable Me 3's $257 million ($2.4 this weekend).
Regarding the aforementioned Inhumans and Tulip Fever, they landed at No. 18 and no. 24 (respectively), with the glorified Marvel TV pilot getting $1.5 million and the sexy flower movie hitting $1.1 million. That may seem rough, but Inhumans is an IMAX feature and only opened on a few theaters, so its per-screen average was actually slightly better than The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
You can find more information about this crummy Labor Day weekend at Box Office Mojo.