Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Guardians’ Gives a Big ‘I Am Groot’ To Its Competition
Holster your space blasters and fire up your Fleetwood Mac, it’s time for the latest edition of the ScreenCrush Weekend Box Office Report! There were few surprises to be found at the top of the list this weekend, but with some big films nearing the end of their theatrical run, it’s a good time to take stock and see how things shook out. Here’s the projected grosses as of Sunday afternoon:
Film | Weekend | Per Screen | ||
1 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | $145,049,000 | $33,368 | $145,049,000 |
2 | The Fate of the Furious | $8,528,965 (-57%) | $2,372 | $207,136,495 |
3 | The Boss Baby | $6,175,000 (-34%) | $1,880 | $156,735,525 |
4 | How to Be a Latin Lover | $5,250,000 (-57%) | $4,364 | $20,653,320 |
5 | Beauty and the Beast | $4,943,000 (-27%) | $1,844 | $487,594,615 |
6 | The Circle | $4,020,000 (-55%) | $1,271 | $15,715,113 |
7 | Baahubali 2: The Conclusion | $3,242,542 (-68%) | $7,757 | $16,175,528 |
8 | Gifted | $2,055,000 (-38%) | $1,097 | $19,240,331 |
9 | Going in Style | $1,900,000 (-47%) | $935 | $40,600,918 |
10 | Smurfs: The Lost Village | $1,820,000 (-48%) | $957 | $40,570,574 |
The big winner this weekend was The Boss Baby, which managed to hold onto third place with… oh, wait, sorry, I was reading the spreadsheet wrong. It turns out that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 actually made all the money, taking in $145 million in first place. There’s box office domination, and then there’s Guardians making three times the combine total of spots 2–20 on this list. That’s also good for the fifth-highest opening of any Marvel movie, finishing solidly behind (in order) The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. For comparison’s sake, the original Guardians of the Galaxy made $94 million in its opening weekend, meaning that this ragtag group of a-holes are now some of the premiere characters in the Marvel universe. If I’d told you that five years ago, you never would’ve believed me.
Finishing well behind Guardians in second place is The Fate of the Furious, which still carved out about $8.5 million for itself. It’s unlikely that this movie will match the incredible box office of Furious 7, but it should pass Fast Five’s total gross in the next few days and its first four weekends ($98.7m, $38.4m, $19.9m, and $8.5m) stack up pretty well against the second-highest grossing move in the franchise, Fast & Furious 6 ($117m, $35.1m, $19.6m, $9.5m). That’s just the domestic numbers, though; The Fate of the Furious has already cracked $1.1 billion at the global box office, making this easily the second most lucrative film in the franchise. It probably doesn’t have enough legs to make up the difference between itself and the $1.5 billion that Furious 7 grossed, but I’m sure that Universal isn’t losing any sleep over how its film has done so far.
The Boss Baby brought in another $6.1 million in third place. Back when the film was first released, I pointed out that no DreamWork Animation movie with its opening had failed to make $170 million at the domestic box office, and The Boss Baby is right on the cusp of that number with $156.6 million. Suddenly, I find myself deeply invested in the last few weeks of The Boss Baby’s theatrical run. C’mon, DreamWorks! Don’t make a liar out of me!
How to Be a Latin Lover continues to be a success with American audiences, grossing another $5 million in fourth place and bringing its domestic run over $20 million thus far. That’s double its reported production budget of $10 million, and the film has just opened in star Eugenio Derbez’s native Mexico this past weekend — no box office numbers available as of this writing, sadly — meaning that there’s still a lot of money left on the table for the film.
The next two spots on this list are an Emma Watson two-fer, with Beauty and the Beast finishing in fifth place with $4.9 million and The Circle finishing in sixth place with $4 million. Beauty and the Beast seems to have finished its climb up the all-time domestic Disney charts in fourth place; there’s no chance it bumps out Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to enter the Top 3, but again, by global box office, it’s already there. Despite a promising cast, The Circle was savaged by critics and has yet to break even against its production budget ($15 million vs. $18 million). The international box office should probably mean this movie makes money — Tom Hanks is still a global draw, right? — but that has to be a disappointing outcome for everyone involved.
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion picks up the seventh spot on this list with $3.2 million, cementing its status as the highest-grossing Indian film of all time. The Hollywood Reporter put together a pretty great profile of Baahubali 2 this past week, noting that, while Indian box office numbers are a notoriously tricky thing to measure, the film most likely crossed over $131 million at the global box office in the last few days. It’s hard not to root for movies like this to succeed domestically, too: much like How to Be a Latin Lover, this movie is proof positive that American audiences are going to support more diverse movies than the current slate of summer films would suggest. Time for some studio executives to start embracing the change.
In eighth place with $2 million is Gifted, the latest attempt to turn Chris Evans into a non-Captain America leading man. The movie has held on pretty well in the past few weeks and is now above $19 million domestically, a strong number for a film that only cost about $7 million to make. Right behind Gifted is Going in Style in ninth place with $1.9 million, good for $40 million and another sleeper hit. These have been strong change-of-pace candidates during a month dominated by superheroes and animated movies; they didn’t do big money out of the gate, but audiences have continued to turn out weekend after weekend.
Finally, the final spot on our Top 10 is occupied by Smurfs: The Lost Village, which may wrap its theatrical run soon with about $40 million in the bank. $1.8 million in the film’s fifth weekend isn’t exactly the kind of money that makes your eyes pop, but as we’ve discussed before, the international market is the key here. Smurfs: The Lost Village has grossed over $130 million internationally, so odds are good we haven’t seen the last of our little blue friends.