NTSC User's News Page

In a surprise victory at the weekend US box office, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween toppled another A-lister as Tom Hanks and Ron Howard’s latest Dan Brown adaptation, Inferno, went up in flames.

Perry’s latest movie about a tough-talking grandmother remained No 1 for a second straight week with an estimated $16.7m.

That was enough to scare away the third installment of the Da Vinci Code franchise. According to studio estimates, Inferno bombed with $15m, about half of what more bullish predictions anticipated.

Sony Pictures could take solace in stronger overseas business. In three weeks of international release, the Italy-set film has earned nearly $150m. The studio also stressed that the $75m budget for Inferno was half that of that spent on The Da Vinci Code (2006) or Angels & Demons (2009).

The unexpectedly poor performance of Inferno was yet another example of an anxious trend in the movie business: more of the same isn’t working.

Poorly reviewed and coming seven years after the last Robert Langdon thriller, Inferno arrived long after the Dan Brown craze. Angels & Demons opened with $46.1m in 2009. Efforts to adapt the third book in Brown’s series, The Lost Symbol, were scuttled in favor of Brown’s fourth volume, Inferno.

“Inferno joins the long list of sequels that didn’t measure up to their predecessors this year and in particular this summer when only three of the 14 sequels released outperformed their immediate predecessors at the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore.

Hanks still has the fall’s biggest hit, Clint Eastwood’s Sully. It has been an especially star-studded season, with competition from Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ($9.6m in its second week) and Ben Affleck in The Accountant ($8.5m in its third week).

But Perry’s long-running character has fared better than each, at least in North America. The Halloween-themed Boo, released by Lionsgate, has made $52m in 10 days, making it Perry’s biggest hit since Madea Goes to Jail.

Check out the Oct. 28-30 weekend box office estimates below:

1. Boo! A Madea Halloween – $16.7 million
2. Inferno – $15 million
3. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $9.6 million
4. The Accountant – $8.5 million
5. Ouija: Origin of Evil – $7.1 million
6. The Girl on the Train – $4.3 million
7. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $3.9 million
8. Keeping Up with the Joneses – $3.4 million
9. Storks – $2.8 million
10. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil – $2.1 million

This box office news can be discussed here

It’s been a spooky weekend in cinemas, as audiences got into the swing of Halloween and crowned Boo! A Madea Halloween king of the Box Office.

The film, which stars Tyler Perry and Bella Thorne and sees Perry take on the role of Grandma Madea for the ninth time, has stormed to the top of the US Box Office, making $27.6 million in its opening week.

Boo! beat out competition from Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. The sequel to the 2012 action hit wasn’t far behind, though – it made $23 million in its first week in theatres, knocking Cruise into second place.

Ouija: Origin of Evil rounded out the top three, in keeping with the scary theme, making just over $14 million in its first week.

The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick, dropped from the top spot to No. 4 in its second week, coming just shy of Ouija: Origin of Evil by a mere $35 thousand.

Former No. 1 movies The Girl on the Train and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children came in at No. 5 and No. 6, earning $6 million and $5.6 million respectively.

Kevin Hart: What Now fell from No. 3 to No. 8, taking $4.11 million. Meanwhile kids’ film Storks followed at No. 9 with $4 million, and Deepwater Horizon finished off the top ten, taking $3.62 million.

The top ten in full is as follows:

1. (-) Boo! A Madea Halloween– $27,600,000

2. (-) Jack Reacher: Never Go Back – $23,000,000

3. (-) Ouija: Origin of Evil – $14,060,000

4. (1) The Accountant – $14,025,000

5. (2) The Girl on the Train – $7,270,000

6. (4) Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $6,000,000

7. (-) Keeping Up with the Joneses – $5,600,000

8. (3) Kevin Hart: What Now? – $4,110,000

9. (6) Storks – $4,085,000

10. (5) Deepwater Horizon – $3,625,000

This box-office news can be discussed here

Ben Affleck’s new thriller The Accountant opened to a chart-topping $24.7m this weekend, according to studio estimates.

Gavin O’Connor directed the R-rated thriller, starring Affleck as an autistic mathematician. The film didn’t play especially well with critics but audiences, who were 58% male and 68% over the age of 35, gave it a promising A CinemaScore.

The weekend’s other new star-driven project, Kevin Hart: What Now? narrowly took second place over last week’s champ, The Girl on the Train. The Kevin Hart concert film, which Universal Pictures distributed, took in $11.98m. The comedian’s 2013 concert film Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain opened to a similar $10m.

In third place, The Girl on the Train netted $11.975m for Universal, bringing its domestic total to $46.6m. With such a minuscule difference, the Universal films could easily switch places when final numbers come in on Monday.

Holdovers Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and Deepwater Horizon rounded out the top five with $8.9m and $6.4m respectively.

The weekend’s other new opener, the Mattel-inspired Max Steel, bombed with only $2.2m. Open Road distributed the film starring Ben Winchell, which currently has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Check out the Oct. 14-16 weekend estimates below:

1. The Accountant – $24.7 million
2. Kevin Hart: What Now? – $11.98 million
3. The Girl on the Train – $11.97 million
4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $8.9 million
5. Deepwater Horizon – $6.4 million
6. Storks – $5.6 million
7. The Magnificent Seven – $5.2 million
8. Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life – $4.2 million
9. Sully – $2.9 million
10. The Birth of a Nation – $2.7 million

This box office news can be discussed here

Propelled by the popularity of Paula Hawkins’ bestselling book, the film adaptation of The Girl on the Train led North American ticket sales over the weekend with $24.7m, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Less successful was Nate Parker’s Nat Turner biopic The Birth of a Nation, which opened with a disappointing $7.1m.

Receipts were affected by weather conditions in the south-eastern US, where Hurricane Matthew caused damage and severe flooding throughout the weekend.

The weekend’s other wide release, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, attempted to court younger crowds, opening to $6.9m from 2,822 theaters. The film follows a teenager who cooks up a series of pranks to embarrass his autocratic principal. It is based on a popular series of books by James Patterson. CBS Films produced the movie for $11m, with Lionsgate distributing.

Last weekend’s champ, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, fell roughly 50% to $15m for a second-place finish. That puts the Tim Burton fantasy’s total at $51.1m. Fox backed the film, which cost $110m.

Lionsgate’s Deepwater Horizon continued to struggle, taking in $11.7m, bringing its domestic total to $38.5m. The action-drama about the men and women caught up in one of the worst oil spills in history earned solid reviews, but cost a whopping $120m after tax credits were taken into account.

Sony’s The Magnificent Seven took fourth place with $9.1m, pushing the western remake’s haul to $75.9m. Storks, the Warner Bros animated comedy, rounded out the top five with $8.4m, bringing its US receipts to $50.1m.

Check out the Oct 7-9 weekend box office estimates below:

1. The Girl on Train – $24.7 million
2. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $15 million
3. Deepwater Horizon – $11.8 million
4. The Magnificent Seven – $9.2
5. Storks – $8.5
6. The Birth of a Nation – $7.1 million
7. Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life – $6.9 million
8. Sully – $5.3 million
9. Masterminds – $4.1 million
10. Queen of Katwe – $1.6 million

This box office news can be discussed here

Tim Burton’s latest fantastical oddity, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, earned a hefty $28.5m at the US box office in its first weekend on release, but Peter Berg’s acclaimed disaster movie Deepwater Horizon, about the 2010 oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, failed to attract an audience

In a crowded autumn weekend, Miss Peregrine came out on top. The 20th Century Fox release, adapted from Ransom Riggs’ popular young adult fantasy novel, cost $110m, meaning it will need a strong performance overseas, too. It started out with $36.5m in 59 markets, Burton’s best opening since Dark Shadows, in 2012.

Deepwater Horizon, starring Mark Wahlberg, cost at least $110m to produce, featuring a nearly life-size replica of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The Lionsgate release was well reviewed but managed only $20.6m.

Last week’s top film, The Magnificent Seven, slid to third with $15.7m in its second week. Disney’s uplifting chess prodigy tale Queen of Katwe, starring David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o, brought in a dismal $2.6m in its national expansion.

Originally slated for release in summer 2015, the Zach Galifianakis and Kristen Wiig heist comedy Masterminds sat on the shelf for a year while its distributor, Relativity Media, went through chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It opened with a mediocre $6.6m.

Two other notable films opened in limited release, with plans for later expansion. Andrea Arnold’s road trip odyssey American Honey, with Shia LaBeouf and newcomer Sasha Lane, debuted with $75,370 on four screens. Denial, starring Rachel Weisz, opened with $102,101 on five screens.

Here at the full September 30-October 2 US box office estimates, as posted by Entertainment Weekly:

1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – $28.5 million
2. Deepwater Horizon – $20.6 million
3. The Magnificent Seven – $15.7 million
4. Storks – $13.8 million
5. Sully – $8.4 million
6. Masterminds – $6.6 million
7. Queen of Katwe – $2.6 million
8. Don’t Breathe – $2.4 million
9. Bridget Jones’s Baby – $2.3 million
10. Snowden – $2 million

This box office news can be discussed here