The January box-office has been unusually buoyed by holiday holdovers and Oscar contenders for the first few weeks of the month, but this weekend a batch of new releases more in line with what we typically expect from January finally slowed the box-office momentum. It did not slow Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle down much, however. The Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart pairing continues to perform solidly, holding on to the top spot for the third week in a row (after trailing The Last Jedi in its first two weeks). Moviegoers added another $19 million into Sony’s coffers, bringing the sequel to $316 million overall. That makes it the fifth highest grossing movie ever for Sony Pictures behind four Spider-Man movies. It’s also added nearly $400 million overseas to bring its worldwide total to about $700 million.
Jumanji also bested all newcomers this weekend, including Chris Hemsworth’s 12 Strong, a fairly generic war movie about the first battles in Afghanistan following 9/11. It scored $15.3 million at the box office, which is actually not bad for a film that only cost around $30 million to make and that will probably earn much of its money back from digital rentals and television licensing rights (12 Strong is a film that almost feels like it was made to air on TNT). Its modest success also has to seem like a small relief for Hemsworth, whose track record with opening films has been abysmal outside of the Thor movies (Blackhat, In the Heart of the Sea and Rush were all box-office bombs).
Not far behind is Den of Thieves with $14.7 million. A knock-off version of Heat, the Gerard Butler/50 Cent heist film had to compete with both 12 Strong and Liam Neeson’s The Commuter for the older male demographic. Like 12 Strong, Thieves is also designed to perform better in the home markets, and for Gerard Butler, he got a better opening from this $30 million film than he did with the $120 million Geostorm or the $140 million Gods of Egypt.
Numbers four through nine this week were all holdovers. The Post continues to do well ahead of Tuesday’s Oscar nominations, of which the Spielberg film expects to be among them. It scored $12.7 million to bring its total to $45 million. The Greatest Showman continues to be the sleeper hit of the month, maintaining a solid $11.2 million in its 5th week. It has now earned $113 million at the box office (not bad for a movie that only opened with $14 million).
Paddington 2 — the best movie of 2018, so far — is still not putting up huge numbers, but it’s holding on well, dropping only 25 percent off its first weekend total with $8.3 million to bring its total to $25 million (it did so well overseas that for Paddington, American box-office is just gravy). The Commuter dropped 50 percent this weekend to $6.8 million. It’s made $25 million so far as well. Star Wars: The Last Jedi continues its slow descent, earning another $6.5 million to bring its domestic total to $604 million (it’s also doing very well overseas, although decidedly NOT in China, where it has been a big disappointment). Insidious: The Last Key hangs out in the top ten for one more week, adding $5.9 million to bring its total to $58 million (on a $10 million budget).
Finally, Forever My Girl, a country-music romance, opened wide this weekend but didn’t make much of a mark, barely clearing $4 million. If you’ve seen trailers for the film and wondered where you’d seen the lead, Jessica Rothe, it was in the fun little horror flick, Happy Death Day. I think she’s got a fine career ahead of her, this film notwithstanding (she’s also set to play one of the leads in the Valley Girl remake).
Next weekend sees the release of the third, and I believe, final Maze Runner movie, The Death Cure. It will face off against Christian Bale’s Hostiles, which expands wide.
(Via Box Office Mojo, Deadline)
