1. Annabelle: Creation (review)- $35M
What James Wan has done with his The Conjuring cinematic universe is essentially what Universal hoped to accomplish with Dark Universe. An entire franchise of characters have been spun out of a couple really successful horror movies, the prime 'Conjuring' movies, and the spinoffs have been just as successful at the box office. Annabelle: Creation, a prequel to the first Annabelle movie which spun from The Conjuring, opened with a scary good $35M. That's just a shade under the $37M of the prior movie in 2014, and less than either Conjuring movie did, but not by much. With a handful of these spinoffs on the way we could be looking at this as one of the most bankable cinematic universes outside of Marvel and Warner Bros.
2. Dunkirk- $11.4M/$153.7M
Christopher Nolan's fifth domestic opener in a row to top $150M. Just sayin'.
3. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature (review)- $8.9M
Considering the first Nut Job was pretty lousy in 2014, and yet Open Road's most successful movie with $120M, it's not a surprise the sequel underwhelmed. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature opened with $8.9M, which is pretty weak for a major mainstream animated movie. On the plus side, we probably won't get The Nut Job 3.
4. The Dark Tower- $7.8M/$34.3M
The only good news left for Sony's ambitious but mediocre The Dark Tower is that it only cost $60M, because it's not likely to hit that number domestically. The film fell 58% from last week, which is bad but looks worse because it opened so poorly. Basically they'll need the overseas numbers for a total bailout, and right now it has $53M worldwide so it's likely to break even at least.
5. The Emoji Movie- $6.6M/$63.5M
6. Girls Trip- $6.5M/$97.1M
7. Spider-Man: Homecoming- $6.1M/$306.4M
8. Kidnap- $5.2M/$19.3M
9. The Glass Castle (review)- $4.8M
It's been a mixed sort of year for Brie Larson already, with the blockbuster success of Kong: Skull Island, the disappointing return on Free Fire, and now the forgettable debut of biopic, The Glass Castle. The film, which has been getting mixed reviews, including by me, tells the true story of Jeannette Walls' abusive upbringing, and how she learned to overcome it. So not exactly fun as a barrel of monkeys. For what it's worth, it only opened in 1400 theaters and the $3.3K average isn't awful. It's just really tough for these dramas to break out in today's Hollywood climate.
10. Atomic Blonde- $4.5M/$42.8M
