By Chris Kavan - 06/23/21 at 11:20 AM CT
Father's Day weekend didn't provide much sparks at the box office as studios eagerly await to see if F9 will provide a much-needed boost after the strong opening of A Quiet Place Part 2 and the equally disappointing opening of In the Heights. Meanwhile, there isn't much to talk about in the bulletin this week as just the third part of Fear Street is the only film that even has a release date attached to it getting a ratings update.
Before that, the box office was led this weekend by The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, which was savaged by critics (currently at 27% on Rotten Tomatoes) but actually proved to be just a shade less popular than the first film with audiences, earning a "B" Cinemascore as opposed to the "B+" for the first film. It managed to top the weekend with $11.3 million - bumped up to $16.7 million including its early Wednesday opening. The first film took in $21.4 million on its opening weekend, so it's down no matter what total you go by, but as expected for a sequel. Unfortunately for this Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek threeway - it's going to face direct competition from F9, which has already proven popular overseas, so I expect this to drop like a ton of bricks.
Coming in second after a light 24.4% drop, A Quiet Place Part 2 added another $9 million to its total. The sequel has earned $125 million now, just 16% behind the original film through the same timeframe and for a horror sequel that's impressive. It's also continuing to do well overseas where its international total is running 15% ahead of the original film at $96.7 million. This continues to be the shining example for Hollywood - we'll see if summer brings out some even bigger guns.
In third place, Peter Rabbit 2 took a 40% hit and added $6 million to its total, which now stands at $20.3 million. That is 59% behind the original film. It hasn't caught on in the UK, either, but looks better in China - with a $70.5 million international total and $91.6 million worldwide showing.
In fourth place, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It suffered a 51.5% hit, but still managed to add $5 million to its new $53.4 million total. That puts it just 12% behind the last Conjuring film, Annabelle Comes Home, through the same time period and give the circumstances (and its availability on HBO Max), that is a good showing. It had earned nearly $150 million worldwide ($142.8 million and counting) as well.
Rounding out the to five, Disney's Cruella held on well in its fourth week out, dipping a light 28.4% with a $4.82 million weekend, adding up to a $64.4 million total. We'll see if it has a big enough push to cross the $75 million mark before it ends its run.
Outside the top five: In the Heights looks like it won't follow in the footsteps of The Greatest Showman. Positive critical and audience response wasn't good enough as the film took a hefty 63.5% drop and landed in sixth place with just $4.2 million, putting its total at just under $20 million to date.
In better news for WB, however, Godzilla vs. Kong became just the second film of the pandemic era to cross the $100 million mark (after A Quiet Place Part 2), with a new $100.1 million total.
In limited release, both Edgar Wright's documentary, The Sparks Brothers brought in $273,530, landing just outside the top 10 in 11th place. And after a good showing in a small number of theaters, The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2 expanded to 539 theaters where it earned $601,607 in 9th place - with a respectable $1,116 per-theater average and a total now above $2 million. Another expansion, 12 Mighty Orphans, landed in over 1000 theaters, bringing in $903,554 (a jump of 259.2% over its limited debut), good enough for 8th place.
This Friday F9 roars into theaters, hopefully bringing some excitement back with it.
There is very little going on in the MPAA Ratings Bulletin this week, with the final film in Netfilix's Fear Street trilogy the only film of note. Since I covered that last week, I don't feel much of a need to talk about it, only that Fear Street Part Three: 1666 brings us back to the origins of the curse that has haunted the town of Shadyside. Chilling! Otherwise, we get a bunch of other movies that don't even have a release date yet.
DISTANCING SOCIALLY
Rated R for language throughout, some sexual references and brief nudity.
DUAL
Rated R for violent content, some sexual content, language and graphic nudity.
FEAR STREET PART THREE: 1666
Rated R for strong violence and gore, language, some sexuality and brief drug use.
THE SPORE
Rated R for bloody images and language.
ZEROES AND ONES
Rated R for language, some violence, bloody images, sexual material and drug content.
