We are now in that annual time of year that I like to call the “Film Dog Days of Summer.” It’s that time of the year, from mid-August until mid-Sept, when major film releases drop significantly before the fall onslaught and studios and distributors release their sure fire losers or more box office questionable films that they have been holding back from release (such as Sony’s The Dark Tower).
That film, which was held back from release at least three times by the studio (mainly because they knew that had a loser on their hands), opened to a tepid $19 million last week, as well as dreadful reviews and the bitter disappointment and anger by fans of Stephen King’s sci-fi/fantasy/westerns series of eight novels. No surprise then that the film dropped big in its second week.
There was actually a big surprise this week with a new entry. Warner Bros.’ Annabelle: Creation, the sequel to the horror spinoffs to the Conjuring horror films (got that?). It’s safe to say that there is a Conjuring cinematic universe now. The first Annabelle film was a where-did-that-come-from box office success, grossing over $256 million worldwide. Perhaps it should have been expected that Creation opened this weekend to an excellent $35 million, which is only just under $2 million less than what the first Annabelle opened with back in 2014, and it added another $36 million in overseas numbers as well. All this interest in horror is no doubt good news for Warner Bros., especially when in a few weeks their much anticipated and heavily promoted film version of Stephen King’s creepy clown novel It opens in September
As for other new films, the pickings are slim and not very promising. Open Road’s The Nut Job 2, the sequel to their 2014 box office hit, came in third but with a very tepid $8.9 million. However, Lionsgate’s The Glass Castle, based on the popular best-selling book and starring Brie Larson in her first lead role since her Oscar-winning best actress role in Room fared worse, not even cracking $5 million this weekend.
The previously mentioned The Dark Tower dropped a huge 70 percent with $7.8 million and just over $34.3 million making it yet another big summer box office film loser. When a film drops 70 percent or more in its second resale of release, it’s over for good.
As for the hanging ons, it’s still Dunkirk and Girls Trip, which both continue to show strength. Dunkirk stayed in second place for the second weekend in a row in with $11.4 million and $153.7 million domestically and looks like it could hit the half-billion dollar mark in a few weeks with $363.7 million worldwide so far.
Meanwhile, Girls Trip is inching closer to the $100 million mark domestically and will easily cross that milestone by next weekend. Though the film though has yet to open wider overseas it is pulling in nice box office results in the United Kingdom, with close to $5.3 million so far.
Full list:
1) Annabelle: Creation WB (NL) $35,040,000
2) Dunkirk WB $11,405,000 Total: $153,712,551
3) The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature ORF $8,934,748
4) The Dark Tower Sony $7,875,000 Total: $34,305,764
5) The Emoji Movie Sony $6,580,000 Total: $63,591,947
6) Girls Trip Uni. $6,520,500 Total:$97,194,005
7) Spider-Man: Homecoming Sony $6,100,000 Total: $306,453,694
8) Kidnap Aviron $5,225,000 Total: $19,394,283
9) The Glass Castle LGF $4,875,000
10) Atomic Blonde Focus $4,572,350 Total: $42,819,575
11) War for the Planet of the Apes Fox $3,700,000 Total: $137,328,493
12) Despicable Me 3 Uni. $3,061,210 Total: $247,667,655
