By Chris Kavan - 01/21/18 at 08:33 PM CT
Jumanji was once again the top film over the weekend, rising on the charts of Sony's all time highest-grossing films. Meanwhiile, both 12 Strong and Den of Thieves opened stronger than expected while Forever My Girl was a non-starter. Phantom Thread, I, Tonya and Call Me by Your Name all expanded to wide releases, meeting with decent expectations going into the busy awards season. Other milestones were also reached by Star Wars, Greatest Showman and Pitch Perfect 3. While the weekend was down compared to last year (thanks to the surprisingly strong opening of Split) it was still full of plenty of good news.
1) JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
The Sony Juggernaut showed little signs of slowing down in its fifth weekend. With a $20 million weekend, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle now stands at $317 million. That means Jumanji officially topped Skyfall ($304 million) to become Sony's highest grossing film behind only the Spider-Man series, and all signs point to Jumanji being able to top Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($336 million) without much trouble. It's also looking more and more likely it will be able to top Furious 7 ($350 million) to become Dwayne Johnson's highest-grossing domestic hit. And at $767 million worldwide it is Sony's 8th-best film, and when it tops 2012 ($770 million) it will be Sony's biggest non-Bond, non-Spider-Man film. If it can hit $800 million worldwide on a mere $90 million budget, it will join the likes of Independence Day and Jurassic Park as one of the top low-cost, high-return live action movies of all time. No spin here, Jumanji is simply doing spectacular and we'll see where Sony takes it from here.
2)
12 Strong
The war film following a group of soliders who are one of the first units assigned to Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks beat expectations with a second-place $16.5 million opening. While reviews were mixed, audiences were appeased, awarding the film an "A" Cinemascore. Men made up 55% of said audience, with 79% coming in 25 or older. If it performs similar to Act or Valor or Lone Survivor, it is looking at a total between the $45-$50 million mark. The $30 million budgeted film should wind up in the black with a little help from overseas. It is also the rare non-MCU hit for Chris Hemsworth who, let's face it, hasn't exactly had the best luck when he's not Thor. It's not going to have great staying power, but it should perform well enough to wind up a minor hit.
3)
DEN OF THIEVES
Speaking of minor hits, Den of Thieves was right on the tail of 12 Strong with a third place finish with $15.32 million. The Heat-esque heist action/crime film opened above most expectations, including the studio, who pegged it in the high single digits at best. It earned a "B+" from audiences, which was 60% and also 30% African American, well above average from that segment of the population. It looks to be another nice film from STX, and even if critics weren't impressed, the $30 million film looks to strike a chord with audiences and, like 12 Strong, should earn enough here and overseas to be considered profitable. Like Hemsworth, Gerard Butler has been struggling as of late and this will also look good for his resume.
4)
THE POST
Steven Spielberg's awards-season hopeful dipped 37.2% down to fourth place, but still brought in a nice $12.15 million to raise its total to $45.1 million. While it's dropping a bit harder than the likes of Bridge of Spies or The Revenant in terms of longevity, it should still wind up in that Spielberg bright spot of $75-$80 million. It just began its overseas rollout, earning $9.9 million, so we'll see how the $50 million picture winds up in general over the next few weeks. It should be able to make it into the black itself, though an awards season bump would certainly help its chances.
5)
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN
Still holding on to that fifth place spot with another remarkable hold (down a mere 11.8% in week five) The Greatest Showman continued to show its staying power. The staying power, in fact, now makes it second behind only Titanic as the leggiest film opening in 1800 plus theaters. With $11 million, the Hugh Jackman musical now stands at $113.48 million. The film joins very rarefied territory indeed, Titantic, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Scream - among the leggiest films of all time, no matter how many theaters are involved. We'll see where this one ultimately lands, but the feel-good musical is putting a smile on everyone's face right now.
Outside the top five: Forever My Girl, the other new wide release, landed with a thump in 10th place with just $4.7 million. Still, the film only cost $3.5 million, earned an "A" Cinemascore and did provide women (who made up 78% of the audience) a choice over the weekend. It will also expand by 500 theaters next week - so we'll see if it rises to the challenge or falls even flatter.
Three awards-season heavy hitters expanded over the weekend as well: Phantom Thread, the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson and supposedly the final film from actor Daniel Day-Lewis, rose from 20th to 12th place with $3.3 million (a 193.6% increase) and new total of $6.18 million.
I, Tonya, which scored at the Golden Globes, added 282 theaters but dropped 10%, dropping from 13th to 15th place with $3.02 million and a new $14.6 million total. Still, with awards coming in hot, this one will likely stick around.
Finally, Call Me by Your Name added 641 theaters to go wide, jumping 111.8% but remaining in 21st place with $1.5 million for a new $9.2 million total. It has played in limited release for eight weeks now and, like the previously-mentioned films, a little awards season recognition will go a long way in seeing if it sticks around.
In milestone news, Star Wars: The Last Jedi added $6.5 million (8th place) to its total, which crossed the $600 million mark with a new $604.3 million total, only the sixth film to cross that mark. With $9.9 million overseas, its global total of $1.296 billion was enough to pass Frozen to move up to 9th place all time on that list.
Pitch Perfect 3 also hit $100 million over the weekend, taking in $3.11 million (13th place) to just cross the milestone at $100.6 million. Finally, talking about records, Paddington 2 is officially the best-reviewed film in the modern era with 169 out of 169 positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, though it doesn't seem to have moved audiences much.
Next week brings us Maze Runner: The Death Cure along with the expansion of the western drama Hostiles.
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