Two mildly-entertaining-looking movies achieved mildly positive box office results this weekend, with Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon finishing in the one and two spots. Miss Peregrine, which looked and sounds like the Tim Burton version of that SNL Wes Anderson parody, grossed $28 million in domestic box office, including $36 million in 59 overseas markets for a $65 million total debut. Deepwater took home $20 million, plus $12.4 million from 52 mostly smaller foreign markets.
Both films were budgeted at $110 million. Peregrine received a B+ Cinemascore, though it did better among younger viewers, and had a 3.166x weekend muliplier (total box office divided by first day), which may suggest that it will continue to play.
The $110 million production is hoping to leg it like The Maze Runner, which earned a $32.5m debut into a $102m domestic total two years ago, to say nothing of that $34m-budgeted franchise starter’s eye-popping $348m worldwide cume. [Forbes]
Deepwater, meanwhile, seems to be a bit of a tweener, aiming at a somewhat sophisticated adult audience while not looking particularly artistically noteworthy. That worked for Sully ($105 million domestic so far), but Deepwater Horizon doesn’t have a Tom Hanks, and with the festival and awards season titles starting to trickle in it’s going to have a lot of competition for its main demo.
This weekend’s other wide release, the long-delayed Masterminds, managed only $6.6 million for sixth place, which makes sense, given that it wasn’t very good. Delaying a comedy (Relativity Media went bankrupt between production and release) generally doesn’t make it ferment like kimchi, but Masterminds had a sort of timeless pointlessness anyway so the delay probably didn’t affect it that much. That being said, it still opened bigger than Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which was probably the best comedy of the year. And better than Queen of Katwe, which expanded to 1,242 theaters this weekend, but grossed a modest $2.6 million.
Next week brings us The Birth Of A Nation, The Girl On The Train, and Middle School.
1). Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (FOX), 3,522 theaters / $8.9M Fri. (includes Thursday previews of $1.2M) / $11.89M Sat. (+33%) / $7.7M Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $28.2M to $28.5M / Wk 1
2). Deepwater Horizon (LG), 3,259 theaters / $7M Fri. (includes $860K Thursday previews) / $8.29M Sat. (+17%) / $5.3M Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $20M / Wk 2
3). Magnificent Seven (SONY), 3,674 theaters / $4.6M Fri. (-64%) / $7M Sat. (+52%) / $4.2M Sun. (-40%) / 3-day cume: $15.8M (-54%) / Total cume: $61.7M / Wk 2
4). Storks (WB), 3,922 theaters / $3M Fri. (-45%) / $6.4M Sat. (+109%) / $4.1M Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $14M (-33% to 35%) / Total: $38.7M / Wk 2
5). Sully (WB), 3,717 theaters (-238) / $2.4M Fri. (-40%) / $3.7M Sat. (+54%) / $2M Sun. (-45%) / 3-day cume: $8.3M (-38%) / Total: $105.3M / Wk 4
6). Masterminds (REL), 3,042 theaters / $2.3M Fri. (includes $265K previews) / $2.68M Sat. (+16%) / $1.6M Sun. (-40%) / 3-day cume: $6.6M / Wk 1
7). Queen of Katwe (DIS), 1,242 theaters (+1190) / $706K Fri. (+7802%) / $1.1M Sat. (+60%) / $733K Sun. (-35%) / 3-day cume: $2.5M (+741%) / Total cume: $2.9M / Wk 2
8/9). Bridget Jones’s Baby (UNI), 2,055 theaters (-875) / $710K Fri. (-52%) / $1M Sat. (+45%) / $615K Sun. (-40%) / 3-day cume: $2.3M (-50%) / Total cume: $21M / Wk 3
Don’t Breathe (SONY), 1,653 theaters (-785) / $666K Fri. (-39%) / $1M Sat. (+64%) / $545K Sun. (-40%) / 3-day cume: $2.3M (-38%) / Total cume: $84.7M / Wk 6
10). Snowden (OPRD), 1,821 theaters (-622) / $537K Fri. (-43%) / $873K Sat. (+62%) / $520K Sun. (-40%) / 3-day cume: $1.9M / Total cume: $18.6M / Wk 9 [Deadline]
Vince Mancini is a writer, comedian, and podcaster. A graduate of Columbia’s non-fiction MFA program, his work has appeared on FilmDrunk, the UPROXX network, the Portland Mercury, the East Bay Express, and all over his mom’s refrigerator. Fan FilmDrunk on Facebook, find the latest movie reviews here.