Much like its protagonists, “Hidden Figures” is the little movie that could, and appropriately on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend the movie has retained a hold on the top of the box office.
Wait, what? That’s right, while studios are eager to get their estimates out on Sundays, when the final figures were looked at last weekend, “Hidden Figures” edged out “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” but there should be no mistakes this time around as the movie has firm hold in the number one slot with $20.4 million. The kind of movie studios don’t make anymore — a mid-budgeted drama — is doing just dandy for 20th Century Fox, coming up on $55 million domestic off a $25 million budget. Even more, the picture experienced an impressively minuscule 10% audience drop in its second weekend in wide release, and Fox will be hoping the Oscar nominations are kind to them in a couple of weeks, as it’ll really help the picture to continue to leg out.
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Things were far less rosy for newcomers this weekend, with everybody dumping their trash over the holiday. STX‘s already delayed horror “The Bye Bye Man” pulled in $13.3 million, which I suppose is decent enough for a movie that cost under $8 million, but given the way horror movies drop hard, if it’s not out of the top ten next week, it should be the week after. And while certain corners of Film Twitter advocated for Paramount‘s “Monster Trucks,” audiences couldn’t care less, with the movie opening to tepid $10 million. The studio already knew it was going to bomb and in a rare move, announced months ago they were ready to take a $115 million hit on the picture. Meanwhile, Open Road didn’t even bother screening “Sleepless” for critics, and Jamie Foxx‘s action movie woke up to $8.4 million. It’s the actor’s worst opening since 2009’s “The Soloist.”
Oscar frontrunner “La La Land” added 333 screens and landed in second place with $14.5 million and it’s grossed a phenomenal $74 million domestically so far. “Patriots Day” added over 3000 screens and did an okay $12 million. It’s well off the pace of the $20.2 million launch of “Deepwater Horizon” which went on to earn $61 million domestic and nearly the same internationally. It’ll be interesting to see how “Patriots Day” plays out in that regard, though its smaller budget of $45 million (versus $125 million for “Deepwater Horizon”) means turning a profit will be possible.
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2800 screens couldn’t help Ben Affleck‘s “Live By Night” which tanked hard, earning a measly $5.4 million and not even cracking the top ten. It doesn’t need to be said that as a director and star, this is an ugly outcome for Affleck. Meanwhile, mainstream audiences prefer Martin Scorsese in more populist mode as perhaps not unexpectedly, “Silence” only drew $1.9 million across nearly 750 screens. An epic movie about the punishing rigors of faith doesn’t exactly sell popcorn.
Lastly, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” continues to add up to big numbers and this weekend it surpassed “Finding Dory” to become the #1 top grossing film of the year in North America. It’s expected to cross $500 million domestically tomorrow (an achievement only seven films have ever reached) and $1 billion worldwide this week. Right now, it’s aiming to knock “The Dark Knight” out of the number six slot on the all time domestic list and worldwide, it’s the fourth highest grossing film of last year with that figure continuing to rise.
1. “Hidden Figures” — $20.4 million ($54.8 mil.)
2. “La La Land” — $14.5 million ($74 mil.)
3. “Sing” — $13.8 million ($233 mil.)
4. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” — $13.7 million ($498.8 mil.)
5. “The Bye Bye Man” — $13.3 million
6. “Patriots Day” — $12 million ($12.9 mil.)
7. “Monster Trucks” — $10.5 million
8. “Sleepless” — $8.4 million
9. “Underworld Blood Wars” — $5.8 million ($23.9 mil.)
10. “Passengers” — $5.6 million ($90 mil.)
