The latest box office early results have come in and the weekend landed about as expected, though with some films not quite living up to projections. That mostly falls upon Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil as it debuted with $36 million domestically, which is just under half of what the first film did in 2014 at $69 million. The film was well-rated with an “A” CinemaScore and we’re even seeing high RT scores as well. It played a bit more to women and older and mostly the same as what the first one did in that area. Where it’ll make up some of those losses is overseas as it debuted in all the major markets and brought in $117 million. That makes for a $153 million worldwide debut this weekend. It’s pretty unlikely that this one will come close to the $758 million worldwide take of the original.
Another new sequel this weekend was Zombieland: Double Tap (check out review here) as it did $26.7 million this weekend domestically. It’s hard to make a direct comparison to the original since it’s been ten years with inflation and all, hence our continued wish to see number of ticket numbers in addition to total $, but the original did $24.7 million back in the day. The film hit a B+ CinemaScore and trended more male and older by a few points. The film also had a limited international opening in just over a dozen markets where it added $5 million. It’s got a number of places to open over the next few months.
Joker grabbed the second place slot and added another $29 million to bring its domestic take to $247 million which when added to the $490 million overseas brings it to a $737 million worldwide take so far. The film had a great hold from last weekend as it only dipped 48% when most films like this dip closer to 60% each weekend since its debut.
Gemini Man brought in $8.5 million this weekend to land in fifth with a domestic hitting $36 million. It added some coin international but even China couldn’t save this one as it added just $21 million for its debut there, bringing its overseas to $82 million so far.
The other recent opener that works better than it should but isn’t gaining any traction is Jexi where it fell to twelfth with $1.2 million added.
Next weekend brings out Black and Blue from Sony / Screen Gems in 2,000 screens while STX goes for the horror side with Countdown in 2,600 screens. The Current War: Director’s Cut gets its release thanks to the folks at 101 Studios funding reshoots and a new cut and giving it a wide release as it attempts to get away from the Weinstein cut. Sony Classics is bringing out Frankie while FIP has set 300 screens for Housefull 4. Jesus is King is the latest IMAX documentary to hit, going into 366 screens, while Matson Films launches the Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound Documentary Matson. And finally, we get the Bruce Springsteen Western Stars Documentary from Warner Bros.