Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Woman walks all over Mummy
The Mummy, Universal’s revival of the famous monster film, failed to scare up much of a turnout among weekend moviegoers, opening at No. 2 in North America to the Warner Bros. hit Wonder Woman.
Starring Tom Cruise, The
Mummy registered sales of about $32 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters, researcher ComScore Inc. said. Wonder
Woman brought in $58.5 million, leading for a second week. Two other films opened in wide release: It Comes at
Night, a horror film, landed in sixth place, while Megan
Leavey, a bio- pic about a young woman Marine, made its debut in eighth position.
The Mummy became the latest summer movie to disappoint U.S. fans, despite having Cruise in the lead. Negative reviews were a big factor for
The Mummy. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a U.S. soldier turned plunderer who inadvertently brings a dangerous ancient princess back to life. Just 17 percent of critics were positive, according to aggregator RottenTomatoes.com, one of the actor’s worst showings among reviewers.
With a global haul of $ 174 million, The Mummy is Cruise’s highest opening weekend globally and internationally, surpassing the 2005 feature War of the Worlds, the studio said. The Mummy opened at No. 1 in 46 countries, including China, where it earned an estimated $52.2 million, Universal said.
It was Cruise’s biggest opening weekend in China, which is on track to overtake the United States as the largest movie market in the world. Though studios receive half the ticket sales from China as they do in the U.S., executives at Universal pegged The
Mummy as a success. They said the film won’t slow plans for a roll-out of a Dark Universe of monster-theme movies based on historical characters from its film library, including The Invisible Man.
It Comes at Night, from distributor A24, opened at No. 6 with sales of about $6 million. The film features Joel Edgerton as a man trying to protect his family from evil stalking their home. It rated highly with critics, with an 85 percent score at RottenTomatoes.
Megan Leavey, from Bleecker Street Media, opened at No. 8 with sales of about $4 million. Kate Mara stars in the true story of a young Marine corporal and her combat dog who save lives during her deployment in Iraq.
Weekend sales for Wonder Woman brought that film’s domestic tally to $206.3 million.
At No. 3 in the box-office tally, the family-friendly animated comedy Captain Underpants skivvied up to $12.2 million in its second weekend, for a 10-day total of $44.4 million. The David Soren-directed feature has a strong cast of voice talent, including comedians Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Thomas Middleditch, Nick Kroll and Jordan Peele.
In its third weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales continued to skulk around the top five, taking in $10.7 million domestically for a worldwide total of $600.2 million. Guardians of
the Galaxy 2 continued to be a force in its sixth week in release, taking in $6.3 million for a global total of $833.2 million.