Movies

Box Office: March 9 – 11, 2018

YOUR BOX OFFICE NUMBERS (from Box Office Mojo)

  1. Black Panther
  2. A Wrinkle in Time
  3. Strangers: Prey at Night
  4. Red Sparrow
  5. Game Night

Twitter users were quick to point out that this past weekend’s box office didn’t necessarily have to be framed as “Black Panther beats A Wrinkle in Time“:

The former has now made a billion dollars globally and made $41M this weekend alone. A Wrinkle in Time opened at $33M against what IMDb estimates to be a budget of $103M (Box Office Mojo doesn’t have an estimate). I tried to corroborate whether or not this is indeed the first time two $100M+ movies by black directors have been the leaders at the U.S. box office. I couldn’t find concrete evidence one way or the other, because the question is unwieldy to Google, but I’m going to guess “yes.” If anyone has hard data, please post it in the comments section.

If for some reason you didn’t want to see either of those, your choices were refreshingly weird. New openers included horror film Strangers: Prey at Night (#3), action/accidental comedy The Hurricane Heist (barely clawing #8 away from Annihilation) and action/deliberate comedy Gringo (#11), all opening on about 2,400 screens. If you lived near one of 549 theaters, you could also have gone to see action/thriller Thoroughbreds, which opened to strong reviews and a $1.2M take.

UPDATE, 5 p.m.: Revised numbers on Box Office Mojo now have Annihilation beating The Hurricane Heist for eighth place by $278,000.

Of the four new openers in limited release, the most notable may be film festival favorite The Death of Stalin, which opened at #26 in four theaters this week. I always wonder where those four theaters are when that happens. I assume New York, LA, Chicago (because the AV Club had a review) and maybe a wildcard theater, like Nome, Alaska or something.

Because I forgot to mention it last week, Early Man (#30) has lost 79% (an only slightly worse drop than the previous week) and is now playing in 186 theaters in the Twilight Zone. Game Night only posted a 24% drop in its third week, from fourth to fifth, while Red Sparrow fell 52% off a weak opening to fourth. Death Wish posted a similar drop and sank from third to seventh, suggesting there may yet be justice in this world. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Greatest Showman seem to have nearly exhausted their markets, as drops accelerated above 30%. Finally, The Shape of Water bounced back 63% as it picked up 720 theaters, bringing its cumulative gross to $61M.