1. Don't Breathe- $15.7M/$51.1M
Aided by a holiday weekend that historically is pretty awful for new releases, thriller Don't Breathe held on to the top spot for a second week with $15.7M. That's a drop of only 40% which is phenomenal for any genre, much less the thriller/horror realm which typically fall off huge after strong starts.
2. Suicide Squad- $10M/$297.4M
3. Pete's Dragon- $6.47M/$64.2M
After a slow start Disney's live-action remake of Pete's Dragon has creeped up to $92M worldwide and should hit $100M when all is said and done. That's still far less than Disney's other remakes and we may see them adjust their future release plans accordingly.
4. Kubo and the Two Strings- $6.46/$34.3M
5. Sausage Party- $5.3M/$88.4M
6. The Light Between Oceans (review here)- $4.9M
The top new release of the week didn't out to be a top anything, and that's Derek Cianfrance's romance drama, The Light Between Oceans. Boasting a ton of star power in Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, and current "It" girl Alicia Vikander, the film should have performed better. But the reviews were middling, the buzz was zero, and at the tail end of summer people are still looking for thrills not weepy melodrama. Not that any of Cianfrance's films were ever big money earners but even by that measure this is disappointing. Blue Valentine, which had considerable Oscar buzz at the time, topped out at $12M, The Place Beyond the Pines at $35M. 'Oceans' will struggle to reach either of those at this rate unless it gets significant international support, which is a possibility.
7. Bad Moms- $4.74M/$102.5M
8. War Dogs- $4.7M/$35.2M
9. Hell or High Water- $4.5M/$14.6M
It's not an exaggeration when the promo ads boast Hell or High Water is "the best reviewed film of the year". The low country heist thriller with Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and from the writer of Sicario is an amazing movie (my review here), and the strong word of mouth has pushed it into the top 10 with $4.5M. Demand is also a reason why it saw an increase of 394 theaters, up to 1304. That number needs to go up, in my opinion, and there's a good chance it will because we may be looking at a sleeper awards contender.
10. Mechanic: Resurrection- $4.2M/$14.4M
On the most recent episode of my show, Chris Bumbray and I posited that Morgan may do awful at the box office, but just enough to hit its $8M budget. We may have been wrong. In one of the worst debuts ever, the artificial intelligence thriller (review here) opened with $1.9M at over 2000 theaters. Ouch. With a cast that includes Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Paul Giamatti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and more, plus Ridley Scott's son Luke behind the camera, you'd think sheer curiosity would have driven up interest. That plus a genuinely interesting ad campaign stressing the mystery behind Taylor-Joy's robotic character, clearly taking a few cues from last year's sci-fi hit, Ex Machina. However it should be noted that Ex Machina, for all its high praise, only made $36M overall and most of that was much later on. Morgan won't get the same positive chatter, although I would argue it's a compelling film worth purchasing a ticket for.
