Weekend Box Office: Venom, A Star is Born Continue to Shine; First Man, Goosebumps 2 Try to Survive

By Chris Kavan - 10/14/18 at 11:47 PM CT

It was a very familiar-looking box office as last week's champs Venom and A Star is Born bested on newcomers and once again took the first two spots over the weekend. First Man just edged out Goosebumps 2 for third and fourth place while Bad Times at the El Royale fell outside the top five and The Hate U Give had another solid expansion. All in all, it was mostly good news as October continued strong, delivering the sixth best weekend for the month on record ($130.5 million for the top 12 films) and the year continues to look strong - 10.2% ahead of last year and still 5.1% ahead of 2016 - the current all-time highest-grossing year.

1) VENOM

While the middling reviews and audience response had many thinking Venom would suffer a pretty big second-week drop, the film once again subverted expectations and held up remarkably well, dipping a mere 55.5% (when many were predicting 60% or more) - a better hold than the last three Spider-Man films (including Spider-Man: Homecoming) and right along the lines of Logan (56.9% drop). The film brought in $35.7 million, giving it a new total of $142.8 million. The PG-13 film has clearly captured the hearts and minds of current audiences and seems to be poised for a $200 million plus total in the long run. In fact, it really has no direct competition until the next Fantastic Beasts comes out in November, so we'll see how far Tom Hardy can take this. Oh, and it earned $69.7 million overseas as well, top of the international box office as well with a $235.3 million total on that front. With that and a decent domestic total, $550-$600 million global seems pretty likely and would be a big win for Sony.

2) A STAR IS BORN

A Star is Born had the best hold among all films in the top 12 (that didn't expand), dropping just 34.7% and retaining its second-place position. That means the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga drama added another $28 million to its total, which is now at $94.1 million. While adults have a bit more to choose from, A Star is Born seems like it will be the top draw until, perhaps, Bohemian Rhapsody hits in early November. While the film's second week drop was a bit higher than the likes of The Martian (31%) and Gravity (22%) the $36 million film will have no issue making a lot of bank. It did even better on the international front, dipping just 14% - adding $20.2 million with an overseas total above $41 million. Adults are flocking to this one and, as has been proven time and time again, they will support this one in the weeks to come and in the long run, even has a chance of starting to beat Venom at the box office (though it will likely not be quite able to top it in total box office returns).

3) FIRST MAN

Fighting for some of that adult crowd over the weekend was Ryan Gosling in the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man. After receiving rave reviews from critics, the film opened with a good but not great $16.5 million. That is about $1 million more than Bridge of Spies ($15.3 million) - a film that went on to make $72 million. Audiences weren't quite as hot on the film as critics, giving it a "B+" Cinemascore (Bridge of Spies received a solid "A"). That audience was made up of 56% male with 52% coming in 35 or older. The biggest factor First Man ran up against continued to be the one-two punch of Venom and A Star is Born, both of which showed remarkable staying power and not all the dramatic biopics in the world would have made a difference. As it stands, First Man isn't down for the count by a long shot, but the $60 million film has a bit of ground to make up if it's going to be profitable, though I thinks its award season chances still look pretty good.

4) GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN

Is there such a thing as too much Jack Black? Well, despite the fact he had a much smaller role this time around, and he's already playing a similar (and bigger role) in The House with a Clock in Its Walls, Goosebumps 2 still managed a decent $16.2 million opening - just slightly behind First Man. That total is about 31% less than the opening for the first Goosebumps ($23.8 million) but the film also cost approximately 39% less with just a $35 million budget. The audience was split evenly between male and female with 72% of said audience coming in 25 years or younger. They gave the film a so-so "B" Cinemascore, but the long-term prospects for this should be good through at least Halloween - and we'll see how it does compared to its budget. If it can hang on, perhaps we'll get a grand trilogy finale - maybe with more Black next time around.

5) SMALLFOOT

The animated Smallfoot crossed the $50 million mark and rounded out the top five with $9.7 million and a new $57.6 million total. That represents a 35.4% drop, not bad considering the current competition out there. It has also earned over $110 million worldwide, meaning it should wind up making a little money in the long run. This one is going to be winding down soon enough, but we'll see if it has enough in the tank to hit the $75 million mark before it exits theaters.


Outside the top five: Bad Times at the El Royale, a Tarantino film via Drew Goddard, tried the action-comedy route in R-rated fashion but not even a decent cast (Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Chris Hemsworth and Jon Hamm among others) wasn't enough to bring in a big audience, who were more interested than Venom, A Star is Born and First Man, thus wound up in 7th place with $7.2 million. A "B-" Cinemascore doesn't bode well for any kind of long-term prospects, thus the $32 million original film is likely to be a bit of a letdown in the profit department. But, hey, I'm looking forward to streaming it in the near future, so there's that.

The Hate U Give continued its strong run in limited release. It added 212 theaters to bring it up to 242 total, jumping 244.7% from 13th to 9th place with $1.76 million and a new $2.47 million total. The film expands nationwide next week and we'll see if the good times continues for the topical film.

Speaking of limited release, Amazon Studios can claim the best per-theater average of the week with Beautiful Boy, which hit four theaters for a $221,437 total (19th place) and a fantastic $55,359 per-theater average. We'll see if it goes just a bit wider with results like that.

Next week brings us the latest Halloween (tracking for a big weekend), which ignores pretty much every sequel (and remake) and goes off just the original John Carpenter classic. As said earlier, The Hate U Give will also expand.

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