M. Night Shyamalan is back in a big way with Split blowing by all expectations with a $40.18 million first place finish.
The opening makes Split the fourth largest January opening of all time, putting it ahead of Cloverfield which opened to $40 million back in 2008. The opening is also a significant improvement over his last surprise hit, The Visit, which opened to $25.4 million back in September of 2015. The film was his first collaboration with Jason Blum and Blumhouse and it proved to be quite successful when it went on to gross $100 million worldwide on a $5 million budget.
Split is there second go round together and it is also pretty micro-budgeted at $10 million which means the film has already grossed four times its budget in one weekend. The film benefited from strong marketing campaign and solid reviews that began trickling out before its release. Split earned a B+ CinemaScore which is pretty decent for horror and thrillers so Split is on the way to becoming Shyamalan’s first $100 million domestic grosser in quite some time.
Settling for second is XXX: The Return of Xander Cage with a gross of $20 million. The film also brought in an estimated $50.5 million internationally this weekend, finishing #1 in 32 of the 53 markets it opened in for an estimated $70.5 million worldwide debut. The $85 million dollar film was always positioned as more of international player so the domestic damage won’t be too bad on this one. Is it a Fast and Furious franchise resurgence? Not exactly, but if it can maintain some decent holds internationally it may still become a hit for the studio.
In other box office news, Hidden Figures had a solid third week hold and grossed $16.25 million for third place and brings its total to $85 million on a $25 million budget. Word of mouth continues to be strong for the film and if it can get a few Oscar nominations this week, the holds should continue to be great for the film. La La Land is also expecting an Oscar boost as it will expand further once nominations are out. This weekend the film dropped from its Golden Globe winning inflated weekend and grossed $8.5 million for fifth place. The film also brought in an estimated $16.6 million from 57 international markets, lifting its international gross to $83.7 million for a worldwide total over $173 million.
Check out the full top ten below:
January 20-22
- Split – $40.18 million
- XXX: The Return of Xander Cage – $20 million
- Hidden Figures – $16.2 million
- Sing – $9 million
- La La Land– $8.5 million
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story– $7.036 million
- Monster Trucks– $7 million
- Patriots Day – $6 million
- The Founder– $3.758 million
- Sleepless– 3.7 million
