“Hotel Transylvania 3” Leads Box Office on Subdued Weekend

BOX OFFICE REPORT

July 13-15, 2018

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Hotel Transylvania 3:
Summer Vacation
$44.1 million
Ant-Man and the Wasp  $28.8 million
Skyscraper $25.5 million
Incredibles 2 $16.2 million
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom  $15.5 million

When a studio has a big hit outside the major movie months (the summer and holiday season), they sometimes move sequels into the summer in hopes of attracting an even bigger audience. But there's not a bigger audience for the Hotel Transylvania movies, it seems. Opening at No. 1 with an estimated $44.1 million, the third installment is right where its predecessors are. That's about what the last two films opened with when they debuted in September 2015 and 2012. It cruised to the top spot, but there was no record to be broken, on a very average weekend.

Ant-Man and the Wasp fell sharply into second place. Its 62 percent drop is on par with Spider-Man: Homecoming, but it will need to approach $200 million quickly, as it will sink fast once Mission: Impossible – Fallout opens in two weeks. A drop like this would be nothing to sneeze at if it had already opened north of $100 million, but a decline of this size might mean it could struggle to out-gross its predecessor.

Is America suffering from Rock Fatigue? It's certainly possible. With his third movie in seven months, Skyscraper debuted lower than Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Rampage, which both earned $35 million in their first three days. Even though Skyscraper is certainly entertaining and Dwayne Johnson is still his charming self, he may have reached the limit of how much of him audiences want. Incredibles 2 still held strong, adding to its already monster gross. It's now surpassed The Dark Knight on the all-time chart, though it likely won't cross $600 million. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom moved to fifth, and should end north of $400 million.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Eighth Grade, Bo Burnham's well-regarded coming-of-age dramedy. The film scored rave reviews and the best debut of the year, averaging $63,071 on just four screens.
  • Sorry to Bother You expanded strongly, jumping all the way to No. 7. It made $4.2 million in its second weekend.
  • Shock and Awe caused neither this weekend. Rob Reiner's latest political drama sank like a stone. Despite a strong cast, it made only $41,000 total on 100 screens.

Next week:

It's a showdown between a movie targeted at men and a movie targeted at women. Denzel's violent sequel to The Equalizer takes on the sunny sequel to Mamma Mia. The former debuted with $34 million back in 2014. The latter opened a decade ago with $27 million. Neither film necessarily needed a sequel, but both could prove to be big hits. So I'll say it's a photo finish, with The Equalizer 2 at No. 1 with $30 million and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again right behind with $28 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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