Box Office Weekend – ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Threepeats on Labor Day

Box Office
Warner Bros. continue to have a great streak as Crazy Rich Asians shows yet another strong hold at the box office (bolstered by the Labor Day Weekend) and The Meg continues to serve as an unexpected sleeper hit. Meanwhile, Incredibles 2 makes history and becomes the first animated movie to make over $600M domestically.

 

Crazy Rich Asians has clearly left a bigger impact on the box office as of late than any other new arrivals, so we’ll discuss it first. Between Friday and Monday, the all-Asian rom-com-dram romp has seen quite a bit of repeat business from Asian families and is performing best in big cities like Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. It’s currently outpacing the likes of The Help back in 2011 and is expected to exceed a filthy-rich $175M before the end of its run, which should make it one of WB’s most profitable movies at the annual box office given the film’s modest budget at $30M. In other WB-related news, The Meg is now at $123.4M, which means that the film will effectively have reaped its $130M production budget in the United States alone when not counting the cuts that theaters get, and it’s still doing surprisingly well overseas. Warner Bros. should continue to have a pretty great run at the box office with late Summer/early Autumn movies when The Nun opens this weekend.

 

Multiple other releases hit over the holiday: Operation FinaleSearching, and Kin. The post-World War II movie Operation Finale had a decent start with $9.5M over six days against a $20M production budget. Word-of-mouth on the film about Nazi hunters seems to be pretty good with an A- CinemaScore, even against generally average critical reviews. Meanwhile, Searching is hoping to capitalize on the success of Crazy Rich Asians with good results ($8.1M) relative to a very small budget that hasn’t yet been disclosed. However, reception to the thriller revolving around an Asian-American family seems to indicate that Sony’s film is less beloved than WB’s, even if it errs toward being positive. One clear loser this weekend is Lionsgate’s Kin, which appears to have crashed and burned with a $3.3M opening even against a $5.5M budget (not accounting for advertising costs, which seem to indicate that the movie will lose money).

 

In other news, Mission: Impossible – Fallout has cleared $200M domestically and should be a lock to outgross the likes of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Mission: Impossible II in the coming days to become the highest-grossing installment in the franchise ever (not accounting for inflation, of course). Also surpassing a major milestone is Pixar’s Incredibles 2 with $600M domestically, which as mentioned earlier makes it the first animated movie to do that and Disney’s fourth movie to clear that milestone in the past eight months (following Star Wars Episode VII: The Last JediBlack Panther, and Avengers: Infinity War). Furthermore, it’s also outgrossed Minions as the second-highest-grossing animated movie of all time, only behind Frozen.

 

The Top Twelve box office performances for the three-day weekend can be summarized as follows (bolded titles are new releases):

  1. Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros.) – $22.235M Weekend/$110.961M Total; 10.4% Drop.
  2. The Meg (Warner Bros.) – $10.53M Weekend/$120.516M Total; 17.8% Drop.
  3. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Paramount Pictures) – $7M Weekend/$204.346M Total; 13.4% Drop.
  4. Operation Finale (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) – $6M Weekend, $7.727M Total.
  5. Searching (Sony Pictures/Screen Gems) – $5.7M Weekend/$6.208M Total; 1366.2% Rise.
  6. Christopher Robin (Disney) – $5.032M Weekend/$85.44M Total; 19.6% Drop.
  7. Alpha (Sony Pictures) – $4.45M Weekend/$27.372M Total; 25.9% Drop.
  8. The Happytime Murders (STX Entertainment) – $4.14MM Weekend/$17.025M Total; 53.7% Drop.
  9. BlacKkKlansman (Universal Pictures/Focus Features) – $4.14M Weekend/$38.33M Total; 18.8% Drop.
  10. Mile 22 (STX Entertainment) – $3.58M Weekend/$31.776M Total; 43.8% Drop.
  11. Incredibles 2 (Disney/Pixar) – $3.162M Weekend/$601.022M Total; 92.5% Rise.
  12. Kin (Lionsgate) – $3.02M Total.

The Top Twelve box office performances for the four-day weekend can be summarized as follows (bolded titles are new releases):

  1. Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros.) – $28.31M Weekend/$117.036M Total; 14.1% Rise.
  2. The Meg (Warner Bros.) – $13.445M Weekend/$123.431M Total; 4.9% Rise.
  3. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Paramount Pictures) – $9.05M Weekend/$206.396M Total; 11.9% Rise.
  4. Operation Finale (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) – $7.807M Weekend, $9.534M Total.
  5. Searching (Sony Pictures/Screen Gems) – $7.65M Weekend/$8.149M Total; 1867.7% Rise.
  6. Christopher Robin (Disney) – $6.725M Weekend/$87.133M Total; 7.4% Rise.
  7. Alpha (Sony Pictures) – $6.005M Weekend/$28.927M Total; 0% Rise.
  8. The Happytime Murders (STX Entertainment) – $5.53M Weekend/$18.145M Total; 42% Drop.
  9. BlacKkKlansman (Universal Pictures/Focus Features) – $5.29M Weekend/$39.482M Total; 3.8% Rise.
  10. Mile 22 (STX Entertainment) – $4.55M Weekend/$32.746M Total; 28.5% Drop.
  11. Incredibles 2 (Disney/Pixar) – $4.466M Weekend/$602.326M Total; 171.9% Rise.
  12. Kin (Lionsgate) – $3.66M Total.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Meg are now playing in theaters.