Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Asians still making Crazy cash
Crazy Rich Asians keeps getting richer, topping the North American box office for a third week in a row and taking in more than double the 4-day weekend earnings of the second-highest-grossing film.
Continuing to signal the market’s desire for more diverse voices in big-budget movies, Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros.), led by Asian stars, sold about $28.6 million in tickets from Friday to Monday. The sales are the latest demonstration of the film’s staying power, representing a decrease in earnings of only around 10 percent from the previous weekend and perhaps reaffirming Warner’s plans to move forward with a sequel.
Crazy Rich Asians, adapted from a 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan, has now swept up more than $117 million in North America, according to comScore, which compiles box-office data.
Also for the third weekend in a row, The Meg (Warner Bros.) came in second. The blockbuster-by-design aquatic thriller with Jason Statham and a giant shark-thing sold about $13.8 million in tickets, bringing its domestic total up to about $124 million. While the film exceeded box-office expectations during its opening weekend, it has since consistently trailed Crazy Rich Asians — though not quite enough to lose its lead of about $10 million in cumulative North American earnings.
Mission: Impossible — Fallout (Paramount) came in third, with an estimated gross of $9.3 million during its sixth weekend at the box office, bringing its domestic total to about $207 million.
The only newcomer in the top five was the historical drama Operation Finale (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), which brought in about $9.6 million domestically over the long weekend. Directed by Chris Weitz, the film stars Ben Kingsley as the high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann and Oscar Isaac as an Israeli agent hunting Nazis a decade and a half after the end of World War II. Lukewarm reviews likely did little to bolster attendance over Labor Day weekend.
Rounding out the top five was Searching (Columbia), a horror film starring John Cho and told through footage captured from computer screens and apps, which brought in about $7.7 million during its second weekend, raising its cumulative gross to $8.1 million.
Outside the top 10 but still notable: Lionsgate’s Kin, about a recently released ex-con on the run, underperformed in its opening. The film brought in about $3.9 million for the holiday weekend, a per-screen average of just $1,806, less than a quarter of Crazy Rich Asians pulled in.
Disney’s Incredibles 2, the follow-up to the 2004 hit, crossed the $600 million mark in domestic sales on Sunday, making it the first animated movie and only the ninth movie of any kind to accomplish that feat. It crossed the $1 billion mark internationally in July and has brought in $1.16 billion so far.
The weekend closes out the fruitful 2018 summer movie season. Box office tracker comScore is projecting that the 2018 summer box office will net out with around $4.39 billion, up over 14 percent from last year when the summer didn’t even hit $4 billion. Year to date, the box office is up 9.9 percent.