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Box Office Weekend – ‘Aquaman’ Reigns Once Again

by · January 6, 2019

Box Office
For the third weekend in a row, Arthur “Aquaman” Curry is the undisputed king of the box office. Aside from a new arrival and some movies shifting in terms of overall rankings, the order of how well movies did this weekend didn’t change all that much compared to last weekend.

 

Aquaman will certainly clear $300M domestically and $1B globally at this rate as its third weekend swam to $30M+, another strong hold for the DC Films standalone. If you told us years ago that “that dude on the Justice League who talks to fish” would end up significantly outgrossing not only his introduction in the team-up movie, but also the initial team-up film starring Superman and Batman, well, then we’d tell you that that was simply outrageous! But it’s how the cards fell in this case, as the future for the DC brand on film looks a lot brighter than it did in November. If the company is able to have more standalone successes like Aquaman, then we might just get a (hopefully better and better-performing) Justice League sequel sooner rather than later.

 

Meanwhile, the three-way between Mary Poppins Returns, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Bumblebee at the box office seemingly has the animated superhero adventure in the best position in the long run. As of right now, Mary Poppins scored third place with nearly $16M, it’s dropping from weekend to weekend at a faster rate than the resilient new take on Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Bumblebee is nearly at $100M domestically, which while not bad is a bit concerning considering that the movie hasn’t broken out overseas in the way that the other Transformers movies have. Either way, all three movies are going to be profitable, but perhaps not as profitable as they would have been if their releases had been more spaced-out.

 

This weekend saw only one new movie of note reach the box office: Sony’s Escape Room. The “Saw-meets-Cube, but for kids” thriller did about 50% better than expectations with $18M, which is double the film’s production budget. Subsequent weekends should be able to get the movie to clear its advertising budget as the movie should provide a tidy profit for the studio. Older-skewing fare, such as The Mule, Vice, and Mary Queen of Scots, all performed in the single-digits. With kids going back to school and adults going back to work, the weekly box office ought to slow down quite a bit, but whether or not this affects the weekend box office as well is something to watch out for in the coming weeks.

 

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

  1. Aquaman (Warner Bros./DC Films) – $30.7M Weekend/$259.72M Total; 41.1% Drop.
  2. Escape Room (Sony Pictures) – $18M Total.
  3. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney) – $15.773M Weekend/$138.729M Total; 44.4% Drop.
  4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures/Sony Pictures Animation) – $13.01M Weekend/$133.861M Total; 30.8% Drop.
  5. Bumblebee (Paramount Pictures) – $12.775M Weekend/$97.128M Total; 38.9% Drop.
  6. The Mule (Warner Bros.) – $9.04M Weekend/$81.108M Total; 25.7% Drop.
  7. Vice (Annapurna Pictures) – $5.803M Weekend/$29.796M Total; 25.3% Drop.
  8. Second Act (STX Entertainment) – $4.91M Weekend/$32.947M Total; 33.3% Drop.
  9. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney/Walt Disney Animation Studios) – $4.685M Weekend/$187.164M Total; 30.3% Drop.
  10. Holmes and Watson (Sony Pictures) – $3.4M Weekend/$28.41M Total; 54.1% Drop.
  11. Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox) – $2.4M Weekend/$193.673M Total; 2.1% Rise.
  12. Mary Queen of Scots (Universal/Focus Features) – $2.204M Weekend/$13.483M Total; 18.5% Drop.

Bohemian Rhapsody, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee, and Aquaman are now playing in theaters.

 

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