‘Jumanji’ jousts ‘Jedi’ off the throne
Move over, Star Wars: There are some new box office champs this weekend.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has topped the charts after three weekends in theaters, and newcomer Insidious:
The Final Key opened in second, pushing The Last Jedi into third place.
Columbia Pictures estimated Sunday that the Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart-led Jumanji earned an additional
$36 million this weekend, bringing its total to $244.4 million.
“This is all about Jumanji’s staying power,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “This is a movie that was overshadowed by all the excitement around The Last Jedi, and yet Jumanji just kept plugging away and drawing audiences throughout the holiday. ... This is kind of unheard of for a movie this size.”
In second place is the horror film In
sidious: The Final Key, the fourth in the franchise, which earned $29.3 million. The Universal and Blumhouse Pictures film even outperformed the third chapter in the series. That film launched to
$22.7 million in June of 2015. Young audiences drove the Insidious box office with 59% under age 25. Whether they enjoyed the film is another question: It got a scary B-minus from
CinemaScore.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi fell to third place with $23.6 million in its fourth weekend in theaters. The blockbuster has grossed $572.5 million domestically to date.
The Greatest Showman took fourth place with $13.8 million and Pitch Per
fect 3 rounded out the top five with
$10.2 million.
Awards season films continue to expand throughout January, too, including Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut
Molly’s Game, which added more than
1,300 theaters this weekend and took in
$7 million. Jessica Chastain stars as real life “poker princess” Molly Bloom. The Winston Churchill film Darkest
Hour starring Gary Oldman also added
790 theaters and took in $6.4 million. The weekend was up around 18% from the same weekend last year, which Dergarabedian sees as a sign that perhaps the 2018 box office will be stronger and more steady than 2017.
“2017 was not consistent. It was volatile; it was a roller coaster,” Dergarabedian said. “This sets the tone for what we’re hoping is a consistent and strong
2018 box office.”
Final figures are expected Monday.