M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass is poised to earn around $40.5 million in its first weekend of release, and about $48 million for the four-day weekend. It makes it the third highest grossing release over Martin Luther King Jr. holiday ever, behind American Sniper ($107 million) and Kevin Hart’s Ride Along ($48.6 million). It’s also poised to record the third best opening ever for M. Night Shyamalan, behind only Signs ($60 million) and The Village ($50 million). It even scored slightly better than Shyamalan’s previous effort, Split, which earned $40 million over its first three days of release on its way to $138 million. It’s also set to be the third biggest opening for a Blumhouse picture, behind only the Halloween reboot and Paranormal Activity 3. Moreover, Shyamalan pulled this off with a relatively skimpy $20 million budget.
And yet, there’s still an air of disappointment around the box-office performance of Glass. The film was expected to be so big that no other studio dared to open anything wide against it on the potentially lucrative MLK holiday, and yet despite the lack of competition, Glass came in at the low end of expectations. The highly anticipated sequel to both Unbreakable and Split should have seen a bigger audience, considering all the enthusiasm moviegoers had for Shyamalan after Split. And yes, while the production budget on the film was only $20 million, the marketing budget was likely at least as much as the $80 million spent on Split globally, so while Glass will almost certainly earn a profit, it won’t be the massive one some Universal may have hoped.
Ultimately, Glass was hurt by the critics, or rather, Shyamalan did not make a film that satisfied those critics, who saw fit to give it only a 35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and many of those negative reviews had fangs. Audiences often ignore the critics, but when a director has made so many disappointments, those same moviegoers are probably more inclined to believe the reviews. Audiences weren’t exactly big fans, either. It received a mediocre B Cinemascore, which wasn’t as good as the B+ for Split, but better than the Cs earned by The Last Airbender, The Village and, ironically, Unbreakable (The Happening, meanwhile, received a miserable D Cinemascore). The middling Cinemascore and the bad reviews also suggests that Glass will not play over the long term nearly as well as Split, which went on to earn $138 million domestic. In fact, while Split improved by 13 percent going from its opening Friday to Saturday, Glass dipped by 9 percent.
All told, Universal is likely happy to have the number one film at the box office this weekend, but likely disappointed that it didn’t earn as much as a more well-liked movie would have.
One movie that benefited greatly from the lack of competition created by the release of Glass, however, was Kevin Hart’s The Upside, which took in a surprising $20 million last weekend and looks like it will add a tidy $19.5 million over the four-day weekend, giving the film an overall total of $47 million. After ten days, it’s already bested its $37.5 million budget and looks like it could earn quite a bit more. Meanwhile, in its fifth weekend, Aquaman adds $12.6 million over four days to bring its domestic total over $300 million, only one of six films that opened in 2018 to do that.
A Dog’s Way Home also continued to surprise, earning another $9.5 million over four days to bring its total to $23 million. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse continues to hang out in the top five, longer than other big budget films released after the animated film. With $9.6 million over four days, the Sony film has now earned $160 million, i.e., just as much as the more expensive Mary Poppins (number 7 with $7 million and $160 million overall) and more than Bumblebee (number 9 with $5.4 million and $116 million overall). Bumblebee, however, did cross the $400 million mark worldwide, thanks largely to China, where it’s scored $137 million after three weeks.
The biggest surprise of the week, however, has to be the performance of the animated Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which I’d never even heard of before its Wednesday release. Released on only 500 screens — and in many areas, screening only once a day — the Funimation event film earned $7.5 million over the four day weekend and $17 million since Wednesday, thanks to a very devoted fanbase mostly of men (84 percent), more of whom are over the age of 25 (44 percent) than under the age of 25 (39 percent). The film has also earned $57 million overseas, so far.
Two other films finish out the top ten. Escape Room with $6.3 million over four days (and $41 million overall) finishes at number eight, while On the Basis of Sex lands at number ten, with $4.7 million over the holiday weekend and $17 million overall.
Next weekend should be very interesting. The Kid Who Would Be King, starring Rebecca Ferguson and Patrick Stewart, has a terrible trailer, but it’s hard to dismiss a film written and directed by the Joe Cornish, the man who discovered John Boyega in Attack the Block. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey’s Serenity is finally being released after its release date was pushed back twice. This feels a little bit like a January dump job.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo, Deadline
