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Helen Mirren Winchester.jpg

Box Office Report: Look, We're All Just Waiting for 'Black Panther'

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 5, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 5, 2018 |


Helen Mirren Winchester.jpg

Quiet week for new releases. It’s almost like February’s got some major competition coming up and nobody wants to go up against it. Curse you, Fifty Shades Freed. It’s Super Bowl weekend so that’s probably not helped much either. Apparently you all like that game where you kick the ball but sometimes pick it up and run with it, then stop it at halftime for a musical act. To the surprise of someone, probably, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle returned to the top spot at the box office with $11m. If it makes another $21m or so, it’ll become the second highest grossing film domestically of all time for Sony.

The Maze Runner: The Death Cure, last week’s top spot holder, fell to number two with a 57% drop in gross, bringing in another $10.2m. A $40m domestic gross in less than a fortnight is nothing to sneeze at, but they’ll need those numbers to hold for a few weeks if they hope to make their $62m budget back.

The highest grossing new release of the week, and really the only one with any wide coverage, was the horror drama Winchester, starring Helen Mirren. It grossed $9.2m, which is solid for a non-IP horror but nothing major to write home about. I don’t expect that to hold or gain in the coming weeks after that new Marvel film comes out.

Otherwise, it was a dry week with most of the same old films. The Greatest Showman will not die, and brought in another $7.8m on its 7th week of release. It’s now the second highest grossing non-X-Men Hugh Jackman movie aside from Les Miserables. Seems like musicals is a good investment for someone in Hollywood.

The Oscar favourites saw their grosses drop this week - curse you, sports - but there was nothing especially egregious in there. The Post remains in the top 10 with $5.2m this week. Domestically, it’s already made back its budget with change to spare. The Shape of Water slipped one place to number 9 but still brought in over $4.3m. In 10 weeks, it’s made $44.5m domestically. Not bad for the fish fucking movie. That and the continuing success of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - $41.8m in 13 weeks - will bring joy to Fox Searchlight. I, Tonya added 490 theatres to its run but with a $2.55m weekend - an average of $1763 per screen - it may be a harder sell than anticipated. I’m curious as to how the cultural narrative of Tonya Harding effects that film. Is it something a lot of Americans still have strong feelings on?

Profits aren’t something that Oscar voters really think about, but it doesn’t hurt to be financially successful. In case you’re wondering how the 9 Best Picture nominees are doing on that front, Dunkirk is the expected top grossing film of the bunch, with $525.6m to its name. Get Out is easily the most profitable film, having made back over 56 times its $4.5m budget. The lowest grossing so far is Phantom Thread, which has made about $17m so far, but like Lady Bird and The Shape of Water, it’s yet to receive wider release in many big territories like the UK. Yup, still waiting for it, dammit.

Next week sees the merciful end of the Fifty Shades franchise, as well as the release of Sony’s Peter Rabbit movie, and the new Clint Eastwood joint, The 15:17 to Paris.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.

What films did you watch this weekend? Answers in the comments.