Thought you could get rid of me, didn’t you? Alas, I am back with a new box office recap. Forgive my missed reports the prior weeks, but with hosting a radio podcast on the weekends to trying to declutter my house, box office recaps were put on the backburner. Now with that out of the way, let’s get started.
Tyler Perry knows what his audience wants, and that’s to see him perform as Mabel “Madea” Simmons. With Boo! A Madea Halloween, Mabel makes her ninth appearance in a Tyler Perry film. As box office history suggests, audiences are more inclined to see Perry films where she is the central figure rather than play a supporting character. Boo! opened with an estimated $27.6 million, which makes it the fourth largest opening for Tyler Perry (his largest is 2009’s Madea Goes to Jail; it opened with $41 million).
Settling for silver was a sequel no one was clamoring for, unless you live overseas or just love action movies, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Opening four years after Jack Reacher became a box office hit overseas thanks to Tom Cruise’s star power, this sequel opened with a thud to the tune of $23 million. Interestingly enough, the three-day total is less than what The Last Samurai earned in 2003 (both films star Cruise and were directed by Edward Zwick). Dropping on 3,780 screens (422 more than 2012’s Jack Reacher) the sequel did have a better opening – $23 million vs. $15.2 million. Then again, the 2012 release came one week after The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Comparatively, Never Go Back‘s opening is less than what the mismarketed Edge of Tomorrow did during June 2014, matched against the opening of the have-tissues-at-the-ready The Fault in Our Stars and holdover Maleficent. It would seem that viewers would rather see Cruise complete impossible missions than be the rough and tumble Jack Reacher.
Finishing third was Ouija: Origin of Evil. The best reviewed new release this weekend, if going by RT rating, the sequel to 2014’s Ouija narrowly edged out Ben Affleck’s The Accountant with $14.06 million. With a production budget of around $9 million, look for this Blumhouse Productions title to see more green this upcoming weekend with Halloween approaching.
Elsewhere, Tim Burton’s adaptation of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children added another $6 million to bring its four-week total to $74.4 million. Jon Hamm, Zach Galifinakis, and Isla Fisher weren’t enough to entice viewers to Keeping Up with the Joneses. The Fox comedy opened on three-thousand screens and recorded a per-screen average of $1,853 to finish with $5.6 million. Speaking of comedy, Kevin Hart: What Now? saw its audience drop 65% with the release of Boo! A Madea Halloween. It sits at $18.9 million after two weeks. What Now? will have a difficult time trying to reach the success of Kevin Hart’s 2013 concert film Let Me Explain ($32.2 million domestic earnings).
Outside of the top 10 some limited releases were getting some great returns. A24’s Moonlight opened on four screens and finished with $414k. Magnolia’s The Handmaiden collected $91.6k from five theaters. Not so well received American Pastoral made $151k from 50 screens, while Ti West’s In the Valley of Violence had a per-screen average of $909 from 33 screens as it ended the weekend with $30k.
On tap for this weekend is one major release: Tom Hanks’s Inferno. Should easily dethrone Madea to take the top spot. For a complete list of the top 10 scroll down.
01. Boo! A Madea Halloween – $27.6 Million
02. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $23 Million
03. Ouija: Origin of Evil – $14.06 Million
04. The Accountant – $14.025 Million ($47.9M)
05. The Girl on the Train – $7.2 Million ($58.9M)
06. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $6 Million ($74.4M)
07. Keeping Up with the Joneses – $5.6 Million
08. Kevin Hart: What Now? – $4.1 Million ($18.9M)
09. Storks – $4 Million ($64.7M)
10. Deepwater Horizon – $3.6 Million ($55.2M)
