One mighty monster conquered the box office this weekend, but whether or not it’s an actual success will be determined in the weeks ahead, and by the number crunchers at Warner Bros.
“Kong: Skull Island” launched with $61 million domestic, beating studio estimates, and added another $81.6 million abroad, for a total global haul of $142.6 million. Whether or not this is a winning debut depends on if you’re looking at the glass half empty or half full. With a budget of $185 million, the costly movie earned considerably less than the $91 million kick-off weekend for “Godzilla.” That film, which cost $160 million, went on to tally $200 million domestic, on its way to $529 million worldwide. However, internationally, ‘Kong’ has started off stronger than “Godzilla,” so it could conceivably make up the difference there. The closest point of comparison for Warner Bros. is Dwayne Johnson‘s “San Andreas,” which started with similar numbers, and went on to earn $473 million globally, most of it overseas. Either way, WB is invested in the franchise, and have already assembled a writers’ room for the inevitable “Godzilla vs. Kong.”
Even though it was the only new major release to arrive this weekend, the rest of the top ten took a sharp dive, though “Get Out” continues to hold impressively, only dropping 25% of its audience in its third week. With a tiny budget of $4.5 and a domestic haul already over $110 million, it’ll be hard to find another movie this year that will come out with that kind of profit margin. It’s a huge win for Blumhouse and Universal. In other hold over releases, 20th Century Fox‘s “Logan” only fell 59% in week two (strong for a tentpole) and now stands at a grand of $438 million worldwide; the highest grossing Wolverine movie ever. This is outrunning the two previous films in two weeks, so it’s very possible the third and seemingly-final Wolverine movie will outgross its predecessors by $200 million or more. “Logan” has yet to surpass “The Wolverine” domestically, but it should easily overtake it by next weekend.
At the arthouse, things were busy with a number of new releases. “Personal Shopper” with Kristen Stewart fared strongest, with the best per-screen average of the bunch, taking in $23,129 on four screens for a total of $92,516. “The Sense Of An Ending” landed $42,000 from four cinemas, while buzzworthy horror “Raw” totalled $25,320 from a pair of screens.
1. “Kong: Skull Island” — $61 million
2. “Logan” — $37.8 million ($152.6 mil.)
3. “Get Out” — $21 million ($111 mil.)
4. “The Shack” — $10 million ($32.2 mil.)
5. “The Lego Batman Movie” — $7.8 million ($159 mil.)
6. “Before I Fall” — $3.1 million ($9 mil.)
7. “Hidden Figures” — $2.76 million ($162.8 mil.)
8. “John Wick: Chapter Two” — $2.70 million ($87.4 mil.)
9. “La La Land” — $1.7 million ($148.4 mil.)
10. “Fifty Shades Darker” — $1.6 million ($112.9 mil.)