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First Man.jpg

Box Office Report: Bad Times on the Moon

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 15, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 15, 2018 |


First Man.jpg

In a week with three major new releases as well as the competition of the previous week, it’s still pretty surprising that Venom managed to hold onto the top spot. It did way better than expected and that supposed tight race with A Star is Born didn’t end up as tight as predicted. Tom Hardy’s goo-fest grossed $35.7m, which is a 55 percent drop from last week. That’s nothing compared to the 60-70 percent drop many were predicting, and it still managed a $8400 per theatre average. It’s soared past $142m domestically, so hell yes we’re getting a sequel where Tom Hardy hopefully goes even wilder. Look, I’m into it. I’m not sure what accounts for these solid numbers. Perhaps the word of mouth is strong enough to overcome mostly bad reviews — I enjoyed it! — or maybe there’s real appeal to a superhero movie that doesn’t have all the weight of an expanded universe on its shoulders.

A Star is Born stays at number 2 with $28m, which is only a 34 percent drop from last week. This one will be a solid burner for the next few weeks and I guarantee it’ll do well with repeat viewers. At the very least, Bradley Cooper should be writing his Golden Globes speech (this film, along with Bohemian Rhapsody, is competing as a Drama and not a Musical, which is surprising but hey, that opens up the Comedy/Musical acting field for Lin-Manuel Miranda!)

Opening at number three is First Man, which opened soft with $16.5m from 3640 theatres. I’m not ready to write this one off as a flop like many are. It’s being compared to other space dramas like Gravity and Interstellar but it’s a very different beast, and certainly much more low-key. It’s appealing more to an adult market, not the blockbuster crowd, and could hold on strong in the coming weeks. Think of stuff like Bridge of Spies and you have a more apt comparison.

New at number 4 is Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, with $16.2m. That’s about $7m lower than the first one. Jack Black is still in this one but in a much smaller role, and a lot of the advertising doesn’t even feature him. Box Office Mojo theorizes that his absence may be because the producers didn’t want to confuse audiences since The House with a Clock in its Walls, another Black family friendly horror movie, was advertised around the same time. Whatever the case, Black is doing really well as a family movie star and it may not have helped to cut him from simple things like the posters.

Bad Times at the El Royale had a less exciting weekend, opening at number 7 with only $7.2m. Shirtless Chris Hemsworth can only help so much.

Amazon has been struggling with 2018 so far but Beautiful Boy gave them a great weekend as it opened in only 4 theatres to a staggering $221k (a $55,359 per screen average). Don’t fuck with the Chalamet stans. We can all learn from that. Also Steve Carell has grown into his silver fox era marvelously.

It looks like Assassination Nation will leave theatres next week after about 5 weeks of release. Currently, it’s in 5 whole theatres and has grossed less than $2m domestically. And Neon had such high hopes for it. Ouch.

This coming week sees the release of Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s, the wonderful Melissa McCarthy film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and the latest sequel/reboot/Jamie Lee Curtis arse kicker fest Halloween.

You can check out the weekend box office here.

What films did you watch this week? Let us know in the comments.



Header Image Source: Universal Pictures