Box office eclipse: Hollywood has dark days
‘Bodyguard’ leads a drab weekend; 2017 looks gloomy
Hollywood effectively took the weekend off, resulting in one of the most dismal box office results in 16 years.
An already slow August came to a screeching halt at the multiplex, where no major new releases were unveiled. That left the Samuel L. Jackson-Ryan Reynolds action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard to top films for the second week, with an estimated $10.1 million in ticket sales.
But the entire slate of films grossed only about $65 million in North America. There have been similarly slow weekends in recent years. But not since September 2001 have the numbers been quite so dreadful.
Mid-August through early September is historically the sleepiest time of the year for the movie business, but it has been especially so this year. This August is down 35% from last year, according to comScore. Next week is expected to be just as bad: No new wide releases are scheduled for Labor Day weekend.
For many, the weekend’s top entertainment option was Saturday night’s Floyd MayweatherConor McGregor match. The Fathom Events simulcast of the fight was one of the more popular offerings in theaters, putting it at No. 9 for taking in $2.4 million from 481 screens.
But the bigger problem was the dearth of significant releases. The six major studios have released only two new wide-release films this August: Sony’s poorly received Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower and Warner Bros.’ successful horror spinoff Annabelle: Creation. The latter came in second this weekend with $7.4 million, bringing its three-week total to $77.9 million.
Coming in at No. 3, the animated release Leap! was one of the few new films to hit theaters. It earned a scant $5 million, accord- ing to studio estimates Sunday.
“It’s a black eye for Hollywood, but not a knockout punch,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “Make no mistake about it, there was little foot traffic in theaters this weekend. But the story line will change in two weeks, when It opens.”
That second recent King adaptation is the only near light on the horizon for theaters, which are struggling through the lowestgrossing summers in years. ComScore estimates this will be the first summer in a decade not to cross $4 billion in domestic ticket sales. The summer as a whole is running 14% behind last year.
One of the few bright spots on the weekend was the expansion of Wind River, Taylor Sheridan’s thriller set on a Wyoming Indian reservation. The Jeremy Rennerled film expanded to 2,095 theaters and landed at No. 4 with $4.1 million in its fourth weekend.
Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky also held well, taking in $4.4 million to land at No. 5 in its second week. But the film’s $15 million two-week total isn’t the industry game-changer its makers hoped it would be.
Final domestic figures will be released Monday.