‘Downton Abbey’ tiptop at box office
NEW YORK — Raise your teacups! The big-screen encore of Downton Abbey handily (but very politely) thumped Brad Pitt’s Ad Astra and Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo: Last Blood in theaters over the weekend in one of the more unlikely box-office upsets.
Downton Abbey debuted with $31 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, royally trumping the $19.2 million-opening for Ad Astra and the $19 million debut for Rambo: Last Blood. Neither the draw of Pitt in space nor a bandanna-wearing Stallone could match the appeal of a tea party with old friends.
While the stout performance of Downton Abbey had come to be expected in the lead-up to release, it was still striking. The debut marked the best first weekend ever for Focus Features in its 17-year history and the best opening for any specialty studio in a decade.
“We always knew that there was a tremendous amount of love for Downton Abbey,” said Lisa Bunnell, Focus’ distribution chief. “But as we started on working with promotions and special events for the movie, we realized that the love for Downton Abbey goes way beyond what we even thought it was going to be.”
Coming four years since the series finale, Downton Abbey returns most of the original cast and was penned by its creator, Julian Fellowes. To drum up excitement, Focus hosted dressups and Downton parties. While the film drew a healthy amount of younger moviegoers (31 percent under 35), its audience was predictably largely female and older (32 percent over 55) — a seldom-catered-to demographic.
Critics greeted the film warmly (85 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) but audiences were even more enthusiastic, giving it an A CinemaScore. Having already played for a week in some international territories, Downton Abbey has already brought in $61.8 million worldwide.
Reviews were similarly strong for James Grey’s Ad Astra, which premiered earlier in the month at the Venice Film Festival. It sits at 83 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and comes on the heels of plaudits for Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood (which has grossed $344.6 million worldwide thus far).
But the film, in which Pitt plays an astronaut journeying through the solar system to reach his space-explorer father (Tommy Lee Jones), was a pricey one at $100 million — especially for an artfully made drama predicated more on father-son psychology than sci-fi spectacle.