1. Sully (review here)- $35.5M
Tom Hanks scored his first undeniable hit in a while as Sully opened with #35.5M, exceeding slightly the projections by analysts. The film tells the story of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who heroically saved 155 people by landing a damaged airliner in the Hudson River in 2009. So it's a biopic that takes a happy story and gives you the darker side of what happened afterwards, and audiences, who probably never knew the full details, were eager to check it out. It's another win for Clint Eastwood who scored huge with his previous biopic, American Sniper, and seems poised to have this film be a contender in the awards season as well.
2. When the Bough Breaks- $15M
There was never any doubt in my mind that surrogate thriller When the Bough Breaks would be a hit despite not screening for critics, and so it was. The Morris Chestnut/Regina Hall film opened with $15M, which is less than the films it should immediately be compared with, last year's The Perfect Guy (also with Chestnut) and 2009's Obsessed. The "African-Americans in domestic trouble" genre is a thing, and the audience is huge and committed. These are the same people who came out to see No Good Deed, and don't care what critics have to say. It's a $10M film that turned a profit on week one, so that it didn't perform as well as others is no skin off Screen Gems' back.
3. Don't Breathe- $8.2M/$66.8M
4. Suicide Squad- $5.6M/$307.4M
5. The Wild Life (review here)- $3.4M
The Belgian animated film The Wild Life opened with $3.4M and has generally received some pretty awful reviews. So it's not going to come close to matching other talking animals films seen this year, such as Zootopia and The Secret Life of Pets. Not all talking animal movies are equal, apparently.
6. Kubo and the Two Strings- $3.2M/$40.8M
7. Pete's Dragon- $2.9M/$70M
8. Bad Moms- $2.8M/$107.5M
9. Hell or High Water- $2.6M/$19.8M
10. Sausage Party- $2.3M/$93.1M
