Weekend Wrap-Up: Creation Helps Summer Conclude with $35.01 million

August 15, 2017

Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle: Creation’s opening saved summer for one week, but that’s the practically the only good news we have to talk about this weekend. The film pulled in $35.01 million, which is over three times its nearest competition. That’s the bad news. The depth this past weekend was terrible, as there were only two films with more than $10 million, compared to five films last weekend. The overall box office fell 4.6% to just $117 million. Worse still, this is 32% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2017 is behind 2016 by $360 million or 4.9% at $7.07 billion to $7.43 billion. The year has lost over $500 million compared to last year’s pace during summer alone. This is a disaster.

Annabelle: Creation earned $35.01 million during its opening weekend, which is the lowest opening in the franchise, but still great for this time of year. In fact, it is the 26th biggest August weekend of all time and the 17th biggest opening weekend for a horror movie. The film’s reviews are great for this time of year and it earned a B from CinemaScore, so its legs should be better than the average horror film. Getting to $100 million will be tough, but the lack of really strong competition for the next few weeks might be enough to get it there.

Dunkirk remained in second place with $10.88 million over the weekend for a total of $153.19 million after four weeks of the release. It will remain in the top five for a full month of release, which is an impressive feat.

The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature opened in third place with $8.34 million in just over 4,000 theaters. As we’ve mentioned, this is by far the worst opening for an ultrawide release. Interestingly, the worst three on that list and seven of the bottom 25 came out this year. Another pattern that is easy to spot, four of the five worst openings were digitally animated and more than half of the bottom 25 are also animated. As for the film’s future, its reviews are among the worst of the year and a B plus from CinemaScore is bad news for a family film. On the positive side, the next animated film coming out is Leap! and I’m not 100% convinced that film is opening wide.

The Dark Tower fell from first to fourth with $7.82 million over the weekend for a total of $34.25 million after two weeks of release. It likely won’t get to $50 million domestically, but if it does better internationally, it could still break even thanks to its respectable $60 million production budget.

Girls Trip rounded out the top five with $6.47 million over the weekend for a total of $97.14 million after four weeks of release. It will get to $100 million during the next weekend, but it will fall out of the top five before then.

The final release of the week is The Glass Castle, which only managed $4.68 million in 1,461 theaters. Mixed reviews and a low theater average will see it disappear from theaters rather quickly.

Moving onto the sophomore class, Kidnap landed in eighth place with $5.10 million over the weekend for a total of $19.27 million after ten days of release. It only fell 49% during its second weekend of release, which is better than most films managed this year and it is enough to break even sometime during its home market run. Next up is Detroit with $2.89 million over the weekend for a total of $13.30 million, including its week-long run in limited release. The film’s theater average is just $961, so it will disappear from theaters very quickly.

There were also a trio of major milestones since last weekend, as Wonder Woman hit $400 million on Tuesday, Spider-Man: Homecoming got to $300 million on Thursday, and Baby Driver made it to $100 million on Sunday. This does help 2017 on the most $100 million movies chart.

- Weekend Box Office Chart

- Annabelle: Creation Comparisons
- The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature Comparisons
- The Glass Castle Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Wonder Woman, Baby Driver, The Dark Tower, The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, Kidnap, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Dunkirk, The Glass Castle, Annabelle: Creation, Girls Trip, Detroit, The Conjuring