‘Glass’ busts box-office slump with $40.6 million
NEW YORK – M. Night Shyamalan scored his fifth No. 1 movie as “Glass,” while not quite the blockbuster some expected, nevertheless dominated Martin Luther King Jr. weekend at the box office with $40.6 million.
Universal Pictures predicts “Glass” will make about $47 million for the fourday holiday. Some forecasts had gone as high as $75 million. But poor reviews took some of the momentum away from the director’s final entry in a trilogy begun with 2000’s “Unbreakable” and followed up with 2017’s “Split.”
Shyamalan’s film registered a 35 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences gave it a mediocre B on CinemaScore. Yet the result still proved the renewed draw of Shyamalan, the “Sixth Sense” filmmaker synonymous with supernatural thrillers and unpredictable plot twists.
Last week’s top film, Kevin Hart’s “The Upside,” held especially well in its second weekend, sliding only 23 percent with $15.7 million. STX Entertainment estimated it will take $19.5 million for the four-day period, further proof that Hart’s fallout as Oscar host over past homophobic tweets hasn’t hurt his box-office appeal.
But the weekend’s biggest surprise was the Japanese anime film “Dragon Ball Super: Broly,” which earned an estimated $8.7 million from just 1,250 North American theaters for third place, according to Comscore, and $19.5 million since opening Wednesday.
The result caught Hollywood off guard, prompting many to wonder: Just what is Dragon Ball? And who is Broly? (A nutty anime series created by Akira Toriyama, and the film’s warrior antagonist, respectively.)
“If you ask the average moviegoer if they’ve ever heard of ‘Dragon Ball Super: Broly,’ they’d have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.
Rounding out the rest of the top five: DC Comics’ Jason Momoa epic “Aquaman” finished third with $10.3 million, and the animated superhero tale “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was fifth with $7.3 million.
Final numbers are expected Tuesday.