‘Crazy Rich Asians’ making crazy money
Romantic comedy tops domestic box office for third consecutive week
LOS ANGELES – “Crazy Rich Asians” isn’t slowing down, even in its third weekend in theaters.
Studios said the romantic comedy-has topped the domestic charts again. The film added an estimated $22.2 million through Sunday, down only 10 percent from last weekend. To date, the film has grossed nearly $111 million from North American theaters.
If the pace held through Monday, “Crazy Rich Asians” also would have one of the biggest Labor Day weekends ever. The existing four-day Labor Day record sits with 2007’s “Halloween” which opened with $30.6 million.
“Crazy Rich Asians” easily won out over the holdovers and a few newcomers. The Nazi war crime film “Operation Finale,” starring Oscar Isaac, made its debut in fourth place with $6 million. The sci-fi thriller “Kin,” with Zoe Kravitz and Dennis Quaid, opened poorly with $3 million.
“The Meg” took second place with an additional $10.5 million, bringing its global total to $462.8 million. “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” in its fifth weekend, added $7 million for third place.
And the John Cho-led computer screen mystery “Searching“performed better than expected in its expansion to
1,200 screens, bringing in an estimated
$5.7 million through Sunday and rounding out the top five.
“Pretty much every summer ends with a whimper ... that’s very typical,” says comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “But this is going to be a very strong Labor Day weekend.”
The weekend closes out the fruitful
2018 summer movie season, with comScore projecting the summer box office will net out with around $4.39 billion, up more than 14 percent from last year. Year to date, the box office is up 9.9 percent.
But September is likely to take a bit of a hit, Dergarabedian warns.
“We’re going to see a downturn in the year-to-date advantage. Last year ‘It’ propelled a record-breaking September,” he says. “I don’t think there’s anything of that magnitude this September.”
Final numbers are due Tuesday.