M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ dominates US box office
LOS ANGELES: M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ has turned into a horror hit with a surprisingly strong US$ 40.2 million in its opening weekend at 3,038 North American locations.
‘Split’, starring James McAvoy as a man with 24 different personalities, performed far above recent expectations for Universal and Blumhouse. It easily topped the 2015 launch of Shyamalan’s found-footage horror movie ‘ The Visit’, which scored an opening weekend of US$ 25.4 million.
‘Split’ doubled Vin Diesel’s launch of ‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’, which is heading for a second-place finish for Paramount with US$ 20 million at 3,651 sites -- in line with recent forecasts. Fox’s historical drama ‘ Hidden Figures’ maintained its impressive performance in third with US$ 16.3 million at 3,416 theatres for a domestic total of US$ 84.2 million.
Michael Keaton’s biopic ‘ The Founder’ showed little traction for the Weinstein Company with a modest US$ 3.8 million weekend at 1,115 locations.
Shyamalan produced and directed ‘Split’ from his own script in which McAvoy’s multiple characters capture three young women and hold them hostage. The movie, which costs under US$ 10 million, generated the fourth-highest opening for a Shyamalan title following ‘Signs’ with US$ 60 million, ‘ The Village’ with US$ 50.7 million, and ‘ The Last Airbender’ with US$ 40.3 million.
‘Split’ carries a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with McAvoy’s performance receiving strong reviews. Shyamalan is selffinancing the project and reteamed with horror specialist Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions after collaborating on ‘ The Visit’, which grossed nearly US$ 100 million worldwide on a US$ 5 million budget.
‘ Xander Cage’ stars Diesel as a skilled government operative character who debuted in the 2002 movie ‘xXx’. The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, and Nina Dobrev.
D. J. Caruso directs from a script by F. Scott Frazier, which centres on Diesel’s Xander Cage coming out of self-imposed exile in a race to recover a seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandora’s Box.
‘ Xander Cage’ has an US$ 85 million budget with backing from Chinese companies Huahua Media and Shanghai Film Group, which limits Paramount’s exposure to about 50%. Paramount and the two companies announced a threeyear US$ 1 billion co-financing deal on Thursday.
‘Hidden Figures’, which won the first two weekends of 2017, held well with a 22% decline during the three days. The drama may be a major beneficiary from Tuesday’s Academy Awards nominations.
Illumination-Universal’s fifth weekend of ‘Sing’ led the rest of the pack in fourth with US$ 9 million at 3,193 locations for a 33- day take of US$ 249.4 million. Lionsgate’s awards contender ‘ La La Land’ finished a close fifth with US$8.4 million at 1,865 sites to push its total to nearly
US$90 million.