Weekend Wrap-Up
By Tim Briody
May 21, 2017
Our last opener this weekend, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, comes in fifth with a weekend of $7.2 million. After a five-year delay between The Long Haul and the last Wimpy Kid movie, Dog Days, a complete reboot of the cast was necessary. Unfortunately for the franchise, the audience also appears to have moved on. The Wimpy Kid series was a surprisingly reliable franchise earlier in the decade, with 2010’s original earning $64 million, 2011’s Rodrick Rules earning $52 million (and even winning its opening weekend with $23.7 million) and Dog Days taking in $49 million in 2012, so it’s surprising that Fox waited so long for the fourth installment of the franchise. While being a strong family option will give The Long Haul a little bit of life over the next few weekends, it’s not going to recover from the reduced opening weekend and won’t match the heights of the previous films in the franchise, and a fifth movie at this point seems pretty unlikely.
The summer’s first huge flop, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is in sixth for the weekend. Dropping 55% from last week to $6.8 million, it’s earned $27.2 million in two weekends in theaters. The $175 million Guy Ritchie production is not quite being bailed out by international markets either, as it’s yet to cross $100 million worldwide. It’s probably not getting to $50 million domestically, and when you factor in the reported marketing cost (another $100 million), some people are getting fired over this one.
The remainder of the top ten are the remnants of the spring, starting with The Fate of the Furious, adding $3.1 million to its total in its sixth weekend. 8 Fast 8 Furious has earned $219.8 million to date; while that’s still well off from what Furious 7 earned domestically, it’s approaching $1 billion in the rest of the world, so expect Fast and/or Furious 9 in the next couple of years.
The Boss Baby in its eighth weekend with $2.8 million. The DreamWorks Animation production distributed by Fox has earned $166.1 million to date and is headed to $175 million.
Beauty and the Beast creeps closer to $500 million in its 10th weekend, adding another $2.4 million this weekend. The Memorial Day weekend should be enough to push it there, as it’s currently at $497.7 million, good for the eighth biggest movie of all time.
How to Be a Latin Lover takes tenth place on the weekend with $2.2 million giving the comedy $28.3 million to date despite never seeing more than 1,200 theaters. I expect Eugenio Derbez’s next comedy to be an American production and primed for a big breakout.
Thanks to our friends at Exhibitor Relations, the top 12 films this weekend earned $117.2 million, down 9.8% from last year when the top 12 earned $129.9 million, led by The Angry Birds Movie with $38.1 million and also boosted by the debuting Neighbors 2 ($21.7 million) and The Nice Guys ($11.2 million).
Memorial Day weekend is next, and it brings us Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth Pirates movie and the first in six years, and the comedic adaptation of Baywatch, as we all wait for Wonder Woman the following weekend.
Top Ten for Weekend of May 19-21, 2017
|
Rank |
Film |
Distributor |
Estimated Gross (millions) |
Weekly Change |
Cumulative Gross ($) |
1
|
Alien: Covenant
|
20th Century Fox
|
36.0
|
New
|
36.0
|
2
|
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
|
Walt Disney
|
35.0
|
-46%
|
301.8
|
3
|
Everything, Everything
|
Warner Bros.
|
12.0
|
New
|
12.0
|
4
|
Snatched
|
20th Century Fox
|
7.6
|
-61%
|
32.7
|
5
|
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
|
20th Century Fox
|
7.2
|
New
|
7.2
|
6
|
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
|
Warner Bros.
|
6.8
|
-55%
|
27.2
|
7
|
The Fate of the Furious
|
Universal
|
3.1
|
-41%
|
219.8
|
8
|
The Boss Baby
|
20th Century Fox
|
2.8
|
-38%
|
166.1
|
9
|
Beauty and the Beast
|
Walt Disney
|
2.4
|
-50%
|
497.7
|
10
|
How to Be a Latin Lover
|
Lionsgate
|
2.2
|
-43%
|
29.4
|
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
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