Still Crazy after all these days
LOS ANGELES — Crazy is the right word for it.
The romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians dominated the box office for the second weekend in a row, adding about $25 million in North American receipts, a drop of only 6 percent from its opening weekend, an almost unprecedented figure.
So far, the Warner Bros. film, playing on more than 3,000 screens, has taken in $76.6 million in 12 days of release, according to figures from measurement firm ComScore.
“This is an incredibly rare occurrence, particularly in the summer where the weekto-week competition is generally more intense,” agreed Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. “But of course August is usually a time when a breakout hit can dominate due to the normally slower period as the summer season winds down.”
“There’s no greater indicator of the enthusiasm of an audience than a minimal drop in a second weekend,” Dergarabedian, said. “This isn’t the product of opening-weekend hype. This is the product of a great movie resonating very strongly with all audiences. The movie has become a cultural phenomenon.”
In second place, Warner Bros. shark attack flick The Meg also continued to perform well in its third weekend, adding about $13 million in ticket sales for a total of $105 million.
The big disappointment was STX Entertainment’s The Happytime Murders, which debuted at No. 3 with $9.5 million. It cost about $40 million to make.
The film earned negative reviews from audiences and critics with a C-minus rating on CinemaScore and a 22 percent rotten rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. It is the second consecutive disappointment for the studio following last week’s poor debut for Mile 22, which brought in about $6.4 million at No. 5.
Paramount’s Mission: Impossible — Fallout, now in its fifth week, landed at No. 4 with an additional $8 million and about $194 million total.
Disney’s Christopher Robin added $6.3 million in its fourth week for a cumulative $77.5 million.
Also new this week, Open Road’s A.X.L. debuted at No. 10 with $2.8 million. The film, about a boy who befriends a robot dog on the run, earned poor reviews with audiences and critics with a B-plus rating on CinemaScore but a 22 percent rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
A.X.L. is the third dogrelated disappointment in as many weeks following the lackluster debuts of Dog Days and Alpha and is the latest flop for the studio (along with Show Dogs and Hotel Artemis) already experiencing financial problems. Last week, the company’s lenders took control after its chairman was unable to raise $200 million in needed financing.
In limited release, Sony Screen Gems’ thriller Searching opened in nine theaters with $360,000, a stellar perscreen average of $40,000. Starring John Cho as the father of a missing teenage girl, the film earned a 92 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
This week, Lionsgate opens the sci-fi action flick Kin and MGM releases the thriller Operation Finale.