This weekend, the nine-year wait was over for Matt Damon fans as his hotly anticipated action sequel Jason Bourne debuted at number one at the North American box office with an estimated $60M grossing more than the next two films combined. Universal averaged a sturdy $14,903 from 4,026 locations and enjoyed its fourth top spot debut of the year.
Jason Bourne is the third film in the franchise to be directed by Paul Greengrass, fourth to star Damon, and fifth installment overall across fourteen years. In terms of opening weekend performance, it ranked second best in gross behind 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum which was the last chapter from the Damon-Greengrass team. It ranked third out of the four Damon films in terms of tickets sold behind Ultimatum and 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy.
But given how this sequel-heavy summer has been going, Bourne delivered the third largest opening weekend for any live-action film behind May’s Captain America and X-Men sequels, and was just a hair ahead of last weekend’s Star Trek Beyond. Damon’s latest also beat out the $55.5M opening this same weekend last year of Tom Cruise’s fifth spy pic Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation which went on to enjoy a healthy summer run ending at $195M.
Bourne earned a solid A- grade from CinemaScore and reviews from critics were mostly mixed. Studio data showed that males made up 55% of the audience and 60% were 35 and older. Ethnic appeal was good too with 44% of the business coming from non-whites.
46 international markets also opened this weekend, one week ahead of the Rio Olympics, and grabbed an estimated $50.1M for a global launch of $110.1M. Top performers were Korea with $11.2M over five days and the U.K. with $10.2M across three days. Bourne will invade China, Mexico, and Russia after the Olympics.
With another action sequel entering the marketplace distracting adult men, Star Trek Beyond tumbled out of first place falling 60% to an estimated $24M. The sophomore drop was exactly in line with past number one hits this summer like the Captain America and Ninja Turtles sequels. Beyond has grossed $105.7M through its second weekend and may end its mission with about $150-160M falling behind its two predecessors which each did over $225M.
Overseas, Star Trek Beyond took in an estimated $13M this weekend from 40 markets with the U.K. being the only one to reach a double digit cume so far. Seven of the top 11 markets have yet to open with many waiting until after the Summer Olympics. The international cume of $54.8M puts the third Trek at $160.5M worldwide.
The raunchy comedy Bad Moms delivered a strong opening weekend in third place with an estimated $23.4M from 3,215 locations for a solid $7,278 average. Adult women and mothers were the driving force for the R-rated pic as audience data showed that the crowd was 82% female. With plenty of starpower coming from a cast that included Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christina Applegate and Jada Pinkett Smith, plus generally positive reviews from critics and funny trailers, Bad Moms served as effective counter-programming to summer’s steady diet of testosterone-filled action sequels.
Produced for only $20M, and earning a glowing A CinemaScore grade, the STX release is sure to end up being a moneymaker. Weekend sales were very frontloaded, however, with Saturday dropping a steep 19% from Friday’s opening day take. Last July’s female-skewing R-rated comedy hit Trainwreck was up 3% on Saturday and had more appeal to the date crowd.
Holding up well in its fourth weekend was the hit toon The Secret Life of Pets with an estimated $18.2M, down 39%, for a new domestic total of $296.2M. The Universal smash will soon become the third animated movie of 2016 to cross $300M joining Zootopia and Finding Dory, both from the Disney camp. Also in the triple century club is The Jungle Book which features all but one of its characters being computer animated. Worldwide, Pets sits at $395.2M. Horror pic Lights Out dipped a reasonable 50% in its sophomore session to an estimated $10.8M putting Warner Bros. at $42.9M to date. The $5M production should end with a robust $60M or so.
Older movie brands saw half of their sales disappear this weekend. Franchise toon Ice Age: Collision Course fell 51% to an estimated $10.5M giving Fox just $42.1M on its way to the $70M range in the end. It may gross seven to eight times that amount from international markets though. Global is now $253.7M with 83% from overseas. Sony’s pricey Ghostbusters collected an estimated $9.8M, off 53%, for a new cume of $106.2M. Final may reach the $130M range.
It’s been a great summer for fright films and thrillers with high grosses coming from films with low production costs. Another arrived this weekend in the form of the teen thriller Nerve which debuted on Wednesday and collected $15.1M over five days including $9M over the weekend period. The PG-13 Lionsgate release averaged $3,546 from 2,538 locations over the three-day period which was good for a pic with a mid-week launch. Reviews were mixed but ticket-buyers were pleased giving it an A- CinemaScore grade which is quite positive for a scary movie.
Finding Dory, the year’s biggest domestic blockbuster, followed with an estimated $4.2M in its seventh round dipping 42% and pushing the cume to $469M. The global tally stands at $830.5M led by China’s $38.4M. That is not too high of a gross there as Dory is not even one of China’s top-grossing animated films this year. Angry Birds has done nearly twice as much there. Rounding out the top ten was The Legend of Tarzan with an estimated $2.4M, tumbling 63%, for a total of $121.9M domestic and $309.1M worldwide for Warner Bros.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $172.3M which was up 27% from last year when Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation opened at number one with $55.5M; and up 3% from 2014 when Guardians of the Galaxy opened in the top spot with an August record $94.3M.
Compared to projections, Jason Bourne opened a little higher than my $57M forecast while Bad Moms and Nerve were on target with my $23M and $10M predictions, respectively.
Follow Gitesh on Twitter.
