Weekend Wrap-Up: Quiet Place Helps the Box Office Make Some Noise
April 9, 2018
A Quiet Place not only topped predictions, it nearly doubled them earning $50.20 million during its opening weekend. The rest of the new releases also beat expectations, albeit by much smaller margins. Blockers nearly matched its production budget, while Chappaquiddick and The Miracle Season didn’t embarrass themselves. Add in some strong holds and the total box office was a surprisingly robust $162 million. This is 19% higher than last weekend and 36% higher than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2018 is still behind 2017 by $60 million or 1.8% at $3.07 billion to $3.12 billion. This is half as much as the gap was this time last week, which is great news going forward.
A Quiet Place opened with $50.20 million over the weekend. This is the best opening for Paramount Pictures since Star Trek Beyond; however, that film cost ten times more to make than A Quiet Place did. To find a film from this studio that did this well on such a low budget, you have to go all the back to 2012 and Paranormal Activity 3. Hopefully this film’s legs will be better. It certainly earned outstanding reviews and B plus from CinemeScore is impressive for a horror film, but there’s a lot of competition over the coming weeks.
Ready Player One held on better than expected with $24.62 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $96.48 million. At this pace, the film will become just the fourth film released in 2018 to reach the $100 million milestone.
Blockers opened in third place with $20.56 million. The film has almost matched its $21 million production budget in just three days of release. Its reviews are 83% positive, but it only managed a B from CinemaScore, so I’m not sure about its legs. That said, it would take a big collapse at the box office and the film would have to bomb internationally to fail to break even given its start.
Black Panther added $8.70 million over the weekend to its running tally, which now sits at $665.63 million. It hit third place on the All-time Domestic Chart after just 51 days of release. At this pace, the film will still be at least semi-wide by the time Avengers: Infinity War is released. I’m sure Disney assumed this film would be hitting the home market before Infinity War hits theaters.
Acrimony had a better than average hold for a Tyler Perry film, falling 51% to $8.38 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $31.67 million. The film opened slower than Temptation did, but its legs are slightly better so it should finish with about $50 million.
I Can Only Imagine slipped to sixth place with $7.80 million over the weekend for a total of $68.53 million after four weeks of release. If it can continue to hold like this, then getting to $100 million remains a possibility. On the other hand, it has likely peaked in terms of theater count so it could see much sharper declines in the future.
Chappaquiddick managed seventh place with $5.77 million in just 1,560 theaters. The film was originally set for an Awards Season release, but while its reviews are good, they are not Awards Season good. Additionally, it only managed a B from CinemaScore, so it likely would have been lost in the crowd during Awards Season.
The Miracle Season missed the top ten with $3.95 million over the weekend. Paradoxically, the film earned the worst reviews of the four wide releases, but it was the only one to earn an A from CinemaScore.
The only film in the sophomore class not in the top five was God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, which fell from 12th place to 16th with just $1.09 million. Its total is just $4.91 million after two weeks of release and with a theater average of $795, it won’t last in theaters for very long.
- A Quiet Place Comparisons
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- Blockers Comparisons
- Chappaquiddick Comparisons
- The Miracle Season Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Black Panther, Ready Player One, Blockers, Chappaquiddick, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, A Quiet Place, Acrimony, I Can Only Imagine, The Miracle Season, Tyler Perry