The stretch of box-office beginning in mid-August is one of the weakest of the year, and this weekend’s arrivals did nothing to change that tradition. WAR DOGS (RatPac/Warners) had the best of the low starts, with $5.4M on Friday (including $1.3M from Thursday night) according to preliminary numbers at Deadline. That may give it a $14M weekend, not much considering that it cost $50M to produce and carries the usual high-priced Warners marketing campaign. With its political-satire-meets-bro-comedy mix of genres and Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as the stars, it also doesn’t seem likely to find much international interest.
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (Laika/Universal) was by far the most critically praised of the weekend’s openings, but so far it’s not translating to ticket sales, with $4.1M on Friday (including about $500K from Thursday night) and a weekend that might hit $13M. That’s a shadow of the year’s animated blockbusters (Finding Dory made almost 4x that much on its first day alone), and not even great by Laika standards, behind The Boxtrolls‘ $17.3M, Coraline‘s $16.8M, and ParaNorman‘s $14.1M. Even if it can quadruple that opening, it won’t get very far. However, on a bigger picture basis, it has a solid shot at a Best Animated Film Oscar nomination, which may help its library value.
There’s nothing good to be said about the $4.2M opening day for BEN-HUR (MGM/Paramount) (which includes about $900K from Thursday night). Depending on whether Christians turn out in force on Sunday, it might reach $12M for the weekend, a terrible result for an epic that cost $100M to produce plus tens of millions in marketing. MGM reportedly bore 80% of the production budget (the marketing costs are less clear), but there will be plenty of red ink for everyone.
SUICIDE SQUAD (RatPac/DC/Warners) is likely to set two marks this weekend. One is positive: it will probably sit on top of the box office for a 3rd weekend in a row, with $5.7M on Friday that should translate into a $19-20M weekend. But that could represent a Weekend 3 drop of up to 56%, which amazingly would be even worse than the parallel plunge for Batman v. Superman. Suicide is still headed for $280-290M in the US, but so far it’s underperforming internationally, partly because it won’t be allowed a run in China, which means it may have trouble reading $650M worldwide. That’s enough for profit, but yet another disappointment for DC/Warners.
SAUSAGE PARTY (Annapurna/Columbia/Sony), perhaps hurt by the arrival of War Dogs, which is aimed at the same young male audience, fell 66% from last Friday to $4.6M, on its way to a $15-16M weekend. That keeps it on track for $90M+ in the US, a fine result considering its low budget.
PETE’S DRAGON (Disney) held badly, considering its largely strong reviews and the limited competition from Kubo. Its Friday-to-Friday drop was 55% to to $3.1M, for a $10-11M weekend and a $60-65M total in the US.
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS (Paramount) had the weekend’s best hold, a testament to its older audience. It was down just 40% Friday-to-Friday to $1.2M, and should have a $4M weekend. That’s in line with the $4.6M Weekend 2 (and 31% drop) for last August’s Meryl Streep vehicle Ricki and the Flash, which reached $26.8M in the US.
HELL OR HIGH WATER (Lionsgate) expanded to near-wide release at 472 theatres, and should have a fair $6000 per-theatre average for the weekend.
BAD MOMS (H Brothers/Tang/STX) continues to be a crowdpleaser, down 42% from last Friday to $2.1M, for a $7M weekend that keeps it pushing toward a possible $100M US total. That’s a big success for the modestly-budgeted comedy, in comparison to the very similar Friday/weekend numbers for JASON BOURNE (Perfect World/Universal), which is heading toward $150M+ in the US, but at 6x the production cost of Bad Moms.
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