1. Crazy Rich Asians– $25M/$76.8M
A slow weekend for new releases really played into a tremendous second weekend for Crazy Rich Asians. The film fell a near-record low 5.7%, the 4th smallest second-weekend drop for a movie that opened in over 3000 theaters. How and why this happened is pretty simple. It’s super rare that a major Hollywood film gets targeted at the Asian audience, and this one already had a built-in fanbase due to the bestselling novel. The result is an event experience that’s like Black Panther on a much smaller scale. With an adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s followup novel China Rich Girlfriend already in the works, we could be looking at the first blockbuster rom-com franchise since….when was the last one? I don’t even remember. Bridget Jones’ Diary?
2. The Meg– $13M/$105.3M
Not to dwell on this too much but The Meg has $408M worldwide, which is more than Solo: A Star Wars Story by a healthy margin. Just sayin’.
3. The Happytime Murders (review)- $10M
I may not have dug The Happytime Murders all that much, but I wanted Brian Henson’s raunchy puppet noir-comedy to succeed. Unfortunately, that’s not the case and the $40M film opened with just $10M, which is an all-time low for a Melissa McCarthy starring vehicle. Oof. I don’t really know what should have been expected. The R-rated film blew its load in the promos (literally in some cases), and there simply wasn’t much left that was very funny. The reviews were terrible, there wasn’t a lot of buzz even for a McCarthy movie, and I expect this will plummet out of the top 10 next week. Or come close to it, anyway.
4. Mission: Impossible-Fallout- $8M/$193.9M
5. Disney’s Christopher Robin– $6.3M/$77.6M
6. Mile 22– $6M/$25.1M
Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg’s actioner Mile 22 slid 56% for $6M in its second weekend. That’s not great, but it’s made worse by the low opening weekend. At a cost of roughly $50M this one is going to need help overseas, but with Iko Uwais in the cast I think it should turn out alright. We’ll see.
7. Alpha – $5.6M/$20.1M
Eh, the 45% drop for the genuinely good survival drama Alpha isn’t awful by any means. I think the strong reviews may have helped out in that regard. However, it’s another case of a weak debut really hamstringing future prospects.
8. BlacKkKlansman- $5.3M/$32M
9. A.X.L.– $2.9M
It’s been a REALLY bad summer for movies about dogs, and the weakest performer of them all is A.X.L., about a boy and his robot canine companion. The film opened to just $2.9M and is the third straight flop this year for fledgling distributor Global Road after Midnight Sun and…wait for it…Show Dogs.
10. Slender Man– $2.7M/$25.4M
