By It was not a good weekend to be a blockbuster movie as the summer of under-performing remakes and sequels continues. We’ll get two new films soon, but the first thing to mention is the woeful second weekend that Dark Phoenix just delivered. The movie suffered a massive 72.6% drop week-to-week, pulling in only $9 million dollars? Only one other film in history that has opened wide has suffered a drop like: Fifty Shades of Grey. That movie opened huge, however, and had a limited audience that quickly dwindled. Meanwhile, Dark Phoenix opened terribly and the did even more terribly, but had a subject matter that should have brought fans back for more, not driven them away.
It probably didn’t help that no one was going to the movies this weekend. Sony tried to make Men in Black a thing again with Men in Black: International, but no one was really having it. The movie opened with $28.5 million, which is more than $20 million less than any other film in the franchise. This is going to be a hard flop for Sony as the film’s international box office was only $102 million, which is less of a flop than the domestic box but still not good.
Meanwhile, Shaft got left in the dust by a whole host of films as it pulled in a measly $8.3 million. The movie was hoping to land somewhere in the $15 million range, but no one wanted to see it. There honestly wasn’t much buzz around it at all, and it felt more like a January release than something you’d open in the middle of summer. This one will probably be out of the top ten within the next two weeks.
So, overall it was not a good weekend for the sequel-happy Hollywood, but they’ll take another stab at it next weekend with three sequel/remakes opening. Of course, one of those is Toy Story 4 so we’re guessing they’ll succeed this time around.
1. Men in Black: International – $28,500,000
2. The Secret Life of Pets 2 – $23,800,000
3. Aladdin – $16,712,000
4. Dark Phoenix – $9,005,000
5. Rocketman – $8,800,000
6. Shaft – $8,315,000
7. Godzilla: King of the Monsters – $8,105,000
8. John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum – $6,100,000
9. Late Night – $5,136,734
10. Ma – $3,610,000
