Box Office Report: Yes, The Giant Gorilla Movie With The Rock Made The Most Money This Week

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 15, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 15, 2018 |

I waited a bit longer than usual before researching this week’s Box Office Report. It seemed like it was going to be a tight race for the top, and various sites were predicting different results. What would win? Would it be Dwayne Johnson’s giant gorilla movie Rampage, or would John Krasinski’s acclaimed horror A Quiet Place hold onto the top spot? Ultimately, The Rock smashed it, but only just. Despite having 500 extra theatres running and Johnson being The Biggest Star on the Planet, it only took in $1.9m more than its closest competitor. Of course, $34.5m is nothing to sneeze at, especially for, let’s be honest, a very silly movie based on a property most people are unfamiliar with. The film doesn’t have a lot of time to rule the top spot given the impending arrival of Infinity War but hey, it’s already made its budget back thanks to the international release, so even if it plummets from this point onward, I think we can chalk this up as another sign of The Rock’s status as our generation’s True movie star.

A Quiet Place has benefitted from extremely strong word of mouth, taking in around $32.6 million in its second week. It only dropped 35% in its second week, which is solid for a film like this, and it’s a hair’s breadth away from grossing $100m domestic. Paramount will be very pleased with these numbers because, believe it or not, it may end up being the studio’s highest grossing release since Star Trek Beyond. Yeah, they’ve had some tough times lately.

Also in the horror world, Truth or Dare easily overcame tepid reviews to gross $19m in its opening weekend, over 5 times its budget. Blumhouse have this horror malarkey down to a fine art by now: Low costs, high-concepts, and savvy release dates.

I expected Blockers to do better, because that word-of-mouth was also strong, but I think it just couldn’t keep up with the other big word-of-mouth movie of the week. Blockers slipped to number 5, behind Ready Player One, with only $10m, a 50% drop.

Fox opened Isle of Dogs wide with an extra 1300 theatres, which brought in a modest $5m. I’m not sure that’ll be enough. Stop-motion is pricey and time-intensive to make, so I hope those numbers don’t scare off any future producers or animators.

Next week will be a very interesting week as this is the final dumping ground to get ahead before Avengers: Infinity War opens. That means the sequel to Super Troopers that apparently people were asking for, and the already maligned Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty. See, it’s funny because Amy Schumer, a conventionally attractive woman, is told she’s ugly and she acts like she’s pretty. Such larks!

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

What films did you watch this weekend? What’s your favourite movie involving an unusually sized primate? Truth or dare? How long before the noise aliens would eat you? Answers in the comments.