TAGGED AS: Box Office, Superheroes
The super hero blockbuster Wonder Woman easily fended off competition from The Mummy to reign as box office queen for a second straight time and displayed exceptional stamina in the process. Warner Bros. collected an incredible estimate of $57.2M for a second weekend decline of only 45% which is among the best all-time for any comic book movie ever. Cume stands at a sturdy $205M with plenty more to come.
Strong word-of-mouth and repeat business are driving people to see Wonder Woman and some who didn’t want to see the film a week or two ago are now joining the movement. Diana generated the smallest second weekend drop and the largest sophomore session gross among all four films in the current DC Extended Universe beating Man of Steel (65%/$41.3M), Batman v Superman (69%/$51.3M), and Suicide Squad (67%/$43.5M). All three of those super hero movies opened bigger than Wonder Woman, but had weaker legs.
Should it keep up this momentum over the weeks to come, Wonder Woman will be able to end its domestic run higher than all those DCEU films with a possible finish in the $350M neighborhood. This also bodes well for the next film Justice League which opens in November and, of course, features Wonder Woman in it.
For all DC movies in history, this is the third biggest gross on the second weekend after only The Dark Knight ($75.2M) and The Dark Knight Rises ($62.1M). The road ahead for Wonder Woman looks promising. Next weekend sees no major action competition. The fifth Transformers movie is the next action tentpole and arrives on June 21 but the lucrative Fourth of July holiday period will have enough room for Diana to carve out a nice slice of the pie.
Overseas, the top market of China saw the Mummy debut deliver a much bigger impact as Wonder Woman fell a sharp 67% in its second round there. The overall international weekend gross fell 54% to $58.1M. New totals stand at $230.2M overseas and $435.2M global. With Germany and Spain opening later this month and then Japan in August, Wonder Woman should reach at least $750M worldwide by the end of its run.
With such intense action competition to deal with, the Universal monster reboot The Mummy was no match and settled for second place opening to an estimated $32.2M. The PG-13 adventure anchored by Tom Cruise landed in 4,035 theaters and averaged $7,980. Reviews were harsh, interest in this property was only so much to begin with, and action fans were feeling much more natural excitement for Wonder Woman this weekend.
The studio is building a cinematic universe of monster movies, not unlike what Marvel has brilliantly executed with its characters. The Mummy is the first film for the new Dark Universe brand and this stumble will not deter other films from making their way into the marketplace including Bride of Frankenstein in 2019 plus The Invisible Man with Johnny Depp and a Frankenstein film starring Javier Bardem. More focus may be put on making a quality film, though.
As for The Mummy, it opened worse than all three Mummy films starring Brendan Fraser from 1999 to 2008. Each of those broke $40M in the first weekend. Studio data showed that the new big-budget movie skewed 54% male, 58% over 25, and 51% non-white. Paying audiences were not too satisfied as the CinemaScore grade was a disappointing B-.
International results were significantly better for The Mummy as the opening weekend delivered a stellar $141.8M from 63 markets for a worldwide debut of $174M. A whopping 82% of that figure came from overseas territories where Cruise’s star wattage is brighter. China easily led all countries in the world with a solid $52.2M launch over three days beating Logan‘s $48.8M and the $48M of Guardians 2 earlier this year.
Younger kids kept seeing the DreamWorks Animation comedy Captain Underpants which dropped 48% in its second weekend holding nicely. Fox grossed an estimated $12.3M boosting the total to $44.6M with schools across the country closing for summer in the days and weeks ahead. Direct competition comes next weekend when Pixar’s Cars 3 arrives.
Falling 52% in its third round was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales with an estimated $10.7M putting Disney at $135.8M domestic – by far the lowest of the five-film series. But international markets are going well led by China’s $161.2M putting the worldwide gross at $600.2M with Japan to open on July 1. A global finish of $725-750M may result. The last three chapters all broke $900M.
Spending its sixth weekend in the top five was the summer kickoff film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with an estimated $6.2M, down just 37%. The Disney release has amassed $366.4M so far and surpassed last year’s Deadpool and The Jungle Book to reach number 35 on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters on its way to finish in the Top 30. Guardians now sits at $833.2M worldwide.
The horror film It Comes at Night opened poorly in sixth place with an estimated $6M from 2,533 runs for a weak $2,369 average. The R-rated chiller from A24 earned vastly different reactions from film critics and audiences as reviews were mostly good while the CinemaScore grade was a dreadful D which is poor even by fright film standards. The budget was just under $5M. The action-comedy Baywatch followed with an estimated $4.6M, down 47%, for a new total of $51.1M for Paramount.
The soldier story Megan Leavey had a soft debut grossing an estimated $3.8M from 1,956 locations for an average of only $1,926. Bleecker Street saw very positive feedback from critics and ticket buyers alike. Falling 56% to an estimated $1.8M was Alien: Covenant which has banked $71.2M to date for Fox. Global is $181.6M with China set to open on Friday.
Warner Bros. rounded out the top ten with the romance Everything, Everything which grossed an estimated $1.6M, off 51%, for a $31.7M sum. The film is one of three in the top ten to be directed by women joining Megan Leavey and of course the reigning box office queen Wonder Woman.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $136.4M which was off 2% from last year when The Conjuring 2 opened at number one with $40.4M; and down 49% from 2015 when Jurassic World debuted in the top spot with a record $208.8M.
