Night School and its real-life comedians beat the animated Smallfoot
The competition for the top spot at this weekend’s box office was a showdown between a live-action comedy and a star-studded animated musical, both in their opening weekends. In the end, it was the flesh-and-bone comics who won.
Universal’s “Night School,” which stars Tiffany Haddish as a teacher and Kevin Hart as one of her adult students, brought in an estimated $28 million domestically, beating out the Warner Bros. movie “Smallfoot” for the No. 1 spot.
“Night School” is the latest film from the director Malcolm D. Lee, whose 2017 comedy “Girls Trip” (also featuring Haddish) made history as the first film with an all-black creative team on both sides of the camera to earn $100 million at the box office. (That film took in about $31 million domestically during its opening weekend.) The cast for Lee’s new film also includes Romany Malco, Fat Joe, Rob Riggle, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Megalyn Echikunwoke and Taran Killam.
“Smallfoot,” which features Common, Channing Tatum, Zendaya and other stars voicing animated yetis, brought in about $23 million domestically according to comScore, which compiles box-office data.
Third place went to Universal’s “The House With a Clock in Its Walls,” with Jack Black and Cate Blanchett. After a strong opening last weekend, that PG-rated fantasy movie made about $12.5 million in North America this weekend, bringing its total to about $44.8 million. Rounding out the top five were Lionsgate’s comedic mystery “A Simple Favor” ($6.6M) and Warner’s horror sequel “The Nun,” ($5.4M)