Weekend Wrap-Up: Upside Surprises Landing on Top Earning STX its First First Place
January 15, 2019
The first major surprise of the year happened over the weekend, as The Upside beat expectations earning first place with $20.36 million. The overall box office fell 14% from last weekend dropping to $119 million. This is 25% lower than the same weekend last year, but that was MLK Day long weekend, so this kind of difference was expected.
The Upside became the first film released by STX Entertainment to break $20 million on its opening weekend, earning $20.36 million. Its reviews are not good, but audiences love it giving it an A from CinemaScore. The film should have better legs than most, in part due to MLK long weekend being this weekend, and in the end it should be a solid midlevel hit.
Aquaman, on the other hand, has been a monster hit for a long time. This weekend, it added $17.35 million lifting its running tally to $287.95 million. It will hit $300 million shortly, while it will continue to rise on the D.C.E.U. charts.
A Dog’s Way Home missed expectations with an opening weekend of $11.25 million. This isn’t a terrible result for a film that cost $18 million to make, but it will certainly need decent legs and good international numbers to break even in a timely fashion. Fortunately, its reviews and its A minus from CinemaScore are good enough that this could happen. Even if it doesn’t, I don’t think Sony will lose a significant amount on this film.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was next with $9.05 million over the weekend for a total of $147.83 million after a month of release. The film has done really well during Awards Season, so it should stick around in theaters for a while and it will make enough domestically to cover its entire $90 million budget, meaning it will likely break even before it reaches the home market.
Escape Room managed to remain in the top five with $8.93 million. It fell just 51%, which is great for a horror film. Furthermore, its sophomore stint haul was almost identical to its $9 million budget, so unless the film had an unreasonably high advertising budget and / or fails to find an audience internationally, it will break even before it hits the home market.
On the Basis of Sex expanded nearly truly wide helping it earn $6.07 million over the weekend for a total of $10.40 million, including its limited release run. Its theater average is just $3,157, which isn’t enough to justify further expansion. However, it is also not so low that most theater owners will drop it in just a few weeks. In this time, its reviews and A score from CinemaScore should help its word-of-mouth getting it to $20 million to $25 million domestically.
There was one more wide release of the week, Replicas, but it missed the top ten with just $2.38 million over the weekend. The film’s theater average was barely half the Mendoza Line at just $1,020, so theater owners will be looking to drop it as soon as contractually able to. It wouldn’t have long legs regardless, as its reviews and its C from CinemaScore will scare away potential audience members.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Aquaman, Replicas, The Upside, A Dog’s Way Home, On the Basis of Sex, Escape Room, DC Extended Universe