The weekend came in as predicted with Cars 3 taking the top spot but there were some surprises among the new releases that made this weekend’s box office a bit more interesting.
Cars 3 finished the weekend with an estimated $53.5 million, which is on the lower end of box office tracking, though that isn’t likely to be much of a concern. This is a franchise built on merchandising as it was revealed a few years ago that Cars merchandise had generated over $10 billion worldwide up to that point. Since that time, Disney has introduced the Planes spin-off franchise, continued the animated television series with Tales from Radiator Springs and, to top it all off, Disneyland opened Cars Land, a $1.1 billion expansion to the theme park’s California Adventure.
Internationally, Cars 3 brought in an estimated $21.3 million from a handful of markets including Mexico ($5.9m) and Russia ($4.8m). The film will continue its international rollout throughout the summer with openings in Australia and New Zealand next week followed by Brazil, Korea, Spain, UK and Japan in mid-July while territories such as France, Italy and Germany won’t see the film until August and into late September.
Second place finds Wonder Woman dropping a mere 30% for an outstanding $40.7 million, which puts its domestic gross just shy of $275 million. This is the second largest third weekend ever for WB, just behind the $42.6 million for The Dark Knight and ahead of the $35.7 million for The Dark Knight Rises. Additionally, the film went into the weekend outpacing Man of Steel after 14 days in release and it is also now overtaken Suicide Squad, which had grossed $262.4 million after 17 days, which is impressive to say the least considering Wonder Woman debuted with $62.7 million less than Suicide Squad. Internationally, Wonder Woman delivered an estimated $39.5 million from 62 markets, bringing the international gross to $297.2 million, pushing the film’s worldwide total to $571.8 million.
In third is Lionsgate’s release of the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez On Me, which has withstood some harsh critical reviews (24% on Rotten Tomatoes). Released on what would have been Shakur’s 46th birthday, All Eyez On Me delivered an estimated $27 million over the weekend, well ahead of expectations. The film was merely a P&A deal for Lionsgate with a spend reported to be in the low-to-mid $20 million range. Additionally, while the critics may have been less than generous, opening day audiences gave the film an “A-” CinemaScore. Of that audiences 53% was male vs. 47% female and 62% was 25 years of age or older. I will say that Friday’s gross suggested the film would debut in the $30-35 million range so there was clearly a rush to see the film on opening day but grosses calmed as the weekend progressed. The legs on this will be questionable but we’ll have to see how it performs this weekend.
Tom Cruises’s The Mummy dropped 56%, which was to be expected, delivering an estimated $13.9 million in its second weekend as its domestic gross now stands at $56.5 million. The film, however, remained the #1 title at the international market bringing in an estimated $53 million from 68 territories as its international total now stands at $239.1 million for a worldwide total just shy of $300 million. The film releases in Egypt next week and won’t arrive in Japan until the end of July. This further proves that Tom Cruise is still a big ticket overseas and that the studio will come out ok with this film in the end due to international grosses.
And rounding out the top five is Entertainment Studios’ 47 Meters Down, which debuted in 2,270 theaters and finished with an estimated $11.5 million. This is slightly ahead of the studio’s $10 million expectations, and Entertainment Studios Founder, Chairman and CEO, Byron Allen said of the debut, “We are very happy with our first wide release, 47 Meters Down. The movie is perfect for the summer, and an absolute crowd-pleaser as indicated by our outstanding per-screen average.” While we don’t have an official budget for the feature, which was acquired from Dimension, the P&A spend was a healthy $30 million. The film received a “C” CinemaScore from opening day audiences, which is a bit troubling, but considering the lack of hype surrounding the film they have to be happy with an opening weekend that came in ahead of tracking.
Check out the full top ten results below:
June 16-18, 2017
- Cars 3– $53.5 million
- Wonder Woman– $40.7 million
- All Eyez On Me– $27 million
- The Mummy – $13.9 million
- 47 Meters Down – $11.5 million
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – $8.4 million
- Rough Night– $8 million
- Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie– $7.3 million
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2– $4.9 million
- It Comes At Night– $2.6 million
