Jumanji retakes box office lead
LOS ANGELES — Super Bowl weekend is usually a slow period at the box office, and this year was no exception.
Hollywood mostly stepped aside for Sunday’s matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots, debuting only one title in wide release, with movies opening around Christmas continuing to dominate the box office in U.S. and Canadian theaters. All told, the estimated $92 million in total box office made it one of the lowest grossing Super Bowl weekends since at least 2005.
Columbia’s surprise smash Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle returned to the top spot in its seventh weekend in theaters, adding about $11 million for about $352.6 million, according to figures from measurement firm ComScore. The film has made $503.1 million internationally for a grand total of $855.7 million.
Jumanji’s weekend gross is the lowest to claim the top spot on a Super Bowl weekend in the last 12 years. (It comes in just below another Kevin Hart comedy, 2014’s Ride Along, which topped the charts with $12 million in its third weekend four years ago.)
In second place, 20th Century Fox’s Maze Runner: The Death Cure added about $10.5 million in its second weekend (a 58 percent decline), for about $40 million in earnings.
The final installment in a trilogy based on a series of young adult novels had a shot at holding the No. 1 position after premiering in the top spot last week. The weekend’s earnings fall at the low end of the $10 million to $12 million range analysts predicted.
The Helen Mirren-led haunted-house horror film Winchester was the sole new wide release on a weekend that Hollywood typically cedes to football. The poorly reviewed Lionsgate-CBS Films release, about the true-life tale of the 19th-century heiress Sarah Winchester, came in third with $9.3 million.
Coming in fourth, Fox’s The Greatest Showman (also in its seventh week) added about $7.7 million and once again claimed the smallest decline in the top 10 (down just 18 percent) for about $137.4 million.
Rounding out the top five was The Post, based on the Washington Post’s printing of the notorious Pentagon Papers, with $5.2 million, for a total of $67.2 million.
At No. 6, Entertainment Studio Motion Pictures’ western Hostiles (now in its second wide-release weekend and seventh weekend overall) added 118 locations and $5.1 million in earnings, a 45 percent decline, for about $21 million.
Among Academy Award contenders, Fox Searchlight’s The Shape of Water — which is nominated for 13 Oscars and took the top prize at the weekend’s Directors Guild of America awards — added 487 theaters and $4.4 million in earnings. Although it saw a 27 percent decline from the previous weekend, the romantic fantasy boosted its earnings to $44.7 million.
Fox Searchlight also added 269 engagements to seventime Oscar nominee and SAG ensemble award winner Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which took in $3 million (a modest 21 percent decline) for about $42 million.
Neon’s I, Tonya (up for three Oscars) added 490 theaters and $2.5 million to its earnings, slipping just 16 percent from the previous weekend for about $22.5 million.