‘A QUIET PLACE,’ ‘RAMPAGE’ LEADING NEWCOMERS
LOS ANGELES — It’s another weekend of buzz versus pure star power at the box office as the word of mouth sensation “A Quiet Place” finds itself neck-and-neck again with Dwayne Johnson’s “Rampage.” This time buzz had the slight advantage.
Studio estimates on Sunday placed “A Quiet Place,” with $22 million, in first, and “Rampage” in second with $21 million, but it’s possible those numbers may shift when final results are tallied today.
Still, John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” continues to be a mini phenomenon. With a $17 million production budget, “A Quiet Place” has grossed $132.4 million from North American theaters in three weeks. “Rampage,” too, is down only 41 percent domestically in its second weekend and continues to rake in the dollars globally. The film boasts a worldwide tally of $283 million, and Johnson has continued using his social media accounts to hype the film and thank audiences.
“I never take success like this for granted. Global success like this means so much,” Johnson posted on his Instagram account Saturday night. “I’m not a Marvel movie. It’s not Star Wars. ‘Rampage’ may as well have been called ‘Dwayne Johnson and his albino gorilla friend’ because it’s such an obscure video game … Thank you guys so much.”
The staying power of both somewhat overshadowed the newcomers, such as Amy Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” and the sequel to the 2001 cult comedy “Super Troopers,” both of which nevertheless managed to find their own niche audiences despite largely negative reviews.
“I Feel Pretty,” released by STX Entertainment, grossed an estimated $16.2 million — a little less than half of what Schumer’s “Trainwreck” opened to in July 2015. Unlike “Trainwreck,” Schumer did not write “I Feel Pretty,” which is about an insecure woman who gets a life-changing confidence boost after a head injury. The concept became somewhat divisive and the subject of a fair amount of scrutiny.
“She’s a force and that’s not going to change,” noted comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “She’s always going to push the envelope. Sometimes that will bring big box office, sometimes it won’t.”
The partially crowd-funded “Super Troopers 2,” meanwhile, leaned into its April 20 opening and scored a fourth place, $14.7 million opening weekend for Broken Lizards and distributor 20th Century Fox.
Fifth place went to the Blumhouse horror “Truth or Dare” with $7.9 million in its second weekend, while Lionsgate’s thriller “Traffik,” with Paula Patton, launched in ninth with $3.9 million.