Indian Action Epic Upends the Box Office

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT

April 28-30, 2017

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

The Fate of the Furious  $19.3 million
How to Be a Latin Lover  $12.0 million
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion  $10.1 million
The Circle $9.3 million
The Boss Baby $9.2 million

For the third straight weekend, the latest installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise repeated in the top spot. But it was the new challengers that impressed the most. The Fate of the Furious brought in another $19.3 million, but it still has yet to cross the $200 million mark. With the summer movie season officially kicking off next weekend, it's unlikely to top the series' sixth entry, meaning it will finish in third place among the Fast flicks. Still, it's already passed more than $1 billion worldwide.

But in a grande debut in second place, Eugenio Derbez continues to prove to be a major draw to audiences regardless of what language they speak. The Mexican comic who broke records with his 2013 comedy Instructions Not Included, crossed over with his bilingual romantic comedy How to Be a Latin Lover, taking in more than $12 million. This also marked the film directing debut of improv comic Ken Marino, best known for his scene-stealing roles in Role Models and Wet Hot American Summer.

And even more impressively, the Indian epic Baahubali 2: The Conclusion took in more than $10 million on only 425 screens. That made for a whopping $23,855 average, and the best debut for an Indian film in the U.S. The biggest films from the country of more than a billion people regularly open in the $2-3 million range, but this surpassed them all. That was more than The Circle, which featured bonafide movie stars Emma Watson, John Boyega and Tom Hanks. Still, that's about as much as all director James Ponsoldt's previous movies combined.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Of the truly limited releases, Buster's Mal Heart did the best. The existential thriller starring Mr. Robot's Rami Malek earned $7,800 on its lone screen.
  • Sleight sadly did not follow in the successful footsteps of other Blumhouse productions like Split and Get Out. The low-budget thriller about a teenager with supernatural powers only made $1.6 million. It's still a winner because the film only cost about $250,000 to make.
  • Speaking of Get Out, it added back some more theaters this weekend (since there wasn't much in the way of competition) and saw a slight bump. It's almost to $175 million, which is just astonishing.

Next week:

The summer movie season officially begins with what else? A Marvel property. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 is definitely going to be No. 1 and definitely make more than the first entry. But how high will it go? Given that the ragtag team of galactic saviors is not quite as popular as Captain America or the Avengers, I don't think $175 million is in range, so let's just be conservative and say $150 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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