This week was a curious showdown at the box office. The two contenders were Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the vestigial trilogy-capper that comes nine years after Now You See Me 2, and The Running Man, which is a Stephen King adaptation, an Edgar Wright joint, and a remake of a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie all in one. All three of those bullet points are noteworthy, but neither are a guarantee of box office success. While neither movie turned out to be a disaster or a blockbuster, Now You See Me 3 ultimately proved the winner of this box office battle.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t reunites the all-star cast from the original films for one more magic-flavored heist. This threequel’s opening, $21.3 million, is in-line with the underwhelming start of the second film, which legged out to $65 million domestic, a far cry from the original’s haul of $117 million. Now You Don’t will be lucky to hit $60 million, and with a budget of $90 million, it’ll be up to international audiences to get this one to turn a profit. To that end, the film’s already made $75 million worldwide, so it’s well on its way.
The Running Man only had enough cardio training to earn $17 million this weekend. I suppose that’s not a bad start for an R-rated action flick, but with a budget of $110 million, as well as the opportunity for leading man Glen Powell to finally break out onto the A-list, I was hoping for more. Despite making epic, crowd-pleasing movies like Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Shaun of the Dead, director Edgar Wright has had a hard time making a genuine box office smash. To date, his most successful film as director is 2017’s Baby Driver, which grossed $227 million worldwide. Fat chance Running Man gets even remotely close.
In third place, we have the second weekend of Predator: Badlands. After a shockingly strong opening last week, the film took something of a tumble in its sophmore frame, dropping 67% to $13 million. Still, with a ten-day total of $66 million domestic, $136 million worldwide, I’m confident we’ll be getting more Predator projects in the very near future.
Elsewhere in the top ten, Regretting You continues to hold on, dropping less than 40% to bring in $4 million in its fourth weekend. The drama has brought in $44.9 million domestically ($82 million worldwide) and has already more than tripled its opening weekend of $13.6 million. Meanwhile, Black Phone 2 is a hair shy of $75 million, and Nuremberg held on strongly in its second weekend, falling just 33% and bringing its 10-day total to $8.6 million. All told, it was a pretty quiet weekend, with a handful of indie newcomers failing to break out, but at least Keeper, from distributor Neon, managed to claw its way to seventh place with $2.5 million.
Next week, Wicked: For Good sets its sights on some all-time records. The first Wicked opened to $112 million this time last year. Hopes are high the sequel will match it, but I bet it’ll dwarf it. My guess? $160 million. Yeah, I’m taking the high bet.
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