The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Quiet Place’ just edges ‘Rampage’ by $1M
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-andneck again with Dwayne Johnson’s “Rampage.” This time buzz had the slight advantage.
Studio estimates on Sunday have 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, like 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,” notes 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 Friday 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.
The box office for the year remains down about 2.4 percent from last year, but that will change next week.
“We’re going to see a huge turnaround later this week in the box office fortunes with ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ ” Dergarabedian said.
The film is tracking to make over $200 million in its first weekend in theaters, leading some experts to wonder whether the superhero pic could have the highest opening of all time, beating out even “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”