While us nerds descended onto Comic-Con, moviegoers held it down at the movies & allowed some well deserving films to pull in some major coin.
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk became the first non-franchise film to top the weekend box office this summer and the first since March of this year. With an estimated $50.5 million, WB’s release of Dunkirk finished in first position from 3,720 locations. Of that gross a whopping 23% ($11.7 million) was from IMAX showings at just 402 locations ($29,129 PTA). Heading into the weekend the critics had already expressed their love for the film (92% on RottenTomatoes and 94 on Metacritic) and audiences tended to agree. The film received an “A-” CinemaScore from opening day audiences, though of the 60% male audience vs. 40% female audience, women graded the film slightly lower at “B+”. Of that overall audience, a massive 76% was over the age of 25.
Internationally, Dunkirk brought in an estimated $55.4 million from 46 markets including #1 openings in the UK ($12.4m), France ($4.9m), Russia ($2.7m), Spain ($1.9m), Korea ($10.3m) and Australia ($4.7m). As was the case domestically, IMAX played a big role overseas, delivering ~13% of the weekend total with an estimated $7 million from 231 screens. Looking ahead, the film opens in Germany, Brazil and Mexico next weekend, followed by Italy (Aug 31), China (Sep 1) and Japan (Sept 9).
In second is Universal’s release of Girls Trip with an impressive $30.37 million debut in 2,591 theaters. Carrying a budget of just $19 million, this marks another successful release for producer Will Packer, an opening just $3.3 million shy of his 2012 success Think Like a Man, which spawned a sequel just two years later. The female-led R-rated comedy stars Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah and received a rare “A+” CinemaScore from opening day audiences, suggesting a long run throughout the rest of the summer is in the offing. The opening is ~$7 million more than last year’s Bad Moms, which went on to gross over $113 million domestically after a $23.8 million opening weekend.
Sony’s Spider-Man: Homecoming dropped 50% in its third weekend, finishing in third position with an estimated $22 million, bringing its domestic cume to $251.7 million. Spider-Man added another $33.2 million internationally bringing its overseas cume to $320 million, pushing its global tally over $570 million.
Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes finished in fourth position, and like the massive 62% drops for both Spider-Man and Transformers: The Last Night in their second weekends, War of the Apes is the latest franchise feature to experience a steep decline in its sophomore session. Apes finished with an estimated $20.4 million, a nearly 64% drop from its opening weekend. The film’s domestic cume now stands at $97.7 million. It’s a really shame too because this is one damn good film.
Rounding out the top five is STX’s release of EuropaCorp’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which delivered an estimated $17 million from 3,553 locations. A range of budgets have been reported for the film with STX reporting a net $150 million budget after subsidies, trade reports have noted a $180 million budget and the CNC reports a budget of $250M, the most expensive French production ever. Of course, the film is expected to do very well in France when it opens next week, and while 90% of the budget was reportedly covered with foreign pre-sales, equity financing and tax subsidies, this remains a weak start for the film domestically.
Check out the full top ten results below:
1. Dunkirk – $50.5 million
2. Girls Trip – $30.3 million
3. Spider-Man:Homecoming – $22 million
4. War for the Planet of the Apes – $20.4 million
5. Valerian – $17 million
6. Despicable Me 3 – $12.7 million
7. Baby Driver – $6 million
8. The Big Sick – $5 million
9. Wonder Woman – $4.6 million
10. Wish Upon – $2.4 million
