Weekend Box Office: ‘The Meg’ Chomps Its Way To Number One
People love a good shark movie. Add Jason Statham to the mix, and people love it even more. What results is The Meg, a box office smash that dethroned Mission: Impossible – Fallout and chomped its way to the top of the weekend box office, far surpassing expectations. Meanwhile, Spike Lee had his best debut in almost a decade with BlacKkKlansman. Here’s the full chart:
Film | Weekend | Per Screen | Total | |
1 | The Meg | $44,500,000 | $10,806 | $44,500,000 |
2 | Mission: Impossible – Fallout | $20,000,000 (-43%) | $5,144 | $161,967,284 |
3 | Christopher Robin | $12,430,000 (-49%) | $3,451 | $50,019,317 |
4 | Slender Man | $11,325,000 | $4,803 | $11,325,000 |
5 | BlacKkKlansman | $10,799,000 | $7,142 | $10,799,000 |
6 | The Spy Who Dumped Me | $6,600,000 (-45%) | $2,122 | $24,560,385 |
7 | Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again | $5,820,000 (-35%) | $2,070 | $103,831,200 |
8 | The Equalizer 2 | $5,500,000 (-37%) | $2,318 | $89,645,928 |
9 | Hotel Transylvania 3 | $5,110,000 (-36%) | $1,974 | $146,887,391 |
10 | Ant-Man and the Wasp | $4,048,000 (-36%) | $2,173 | $203,518,344 |
The movie about Jason Statham stabbing a giant prehistoric shark was expected to debut in the mid $20 million range, but never, my friends, underestimate a giant prehistoric shark named the Megalodon. You really shouldn’t underestimate Mr. Statham either. The Meg proved itself a surprise hit, scooping up $44.5 million domestically. It’s now the actor’s biggest opener outside of the last two Fast and Furious films, which means it’s the biggest debut for a film solely led by Statham and not an ensemble. The man has a formula, and it’s working out quite well. The film also opened to a massive $96.8 million overseas.
While Screen Gems’ Slender Man, debuted at number four with $11.3 million, earning back its $10 milliom budget, audiences weren’t exactly into the movie about the internet horror sensation. It received a D- CinemaScore. The next most exciting news concerns the fifth biggest opener: Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. The film about a real-life black cop who infiltrated the KKK debuted with $10.8 million, making it Lee’s best opener since his Original Kings of Comedy ($11 million) in 2000 and Inside Man ($28.9) in 2006. (It’s worth noting that his last film, Chi-Raq, didn’t get a full theatrical release due to its streaming release on Amazon.) As Forbes notes, BlacKkKlansman is Lee’s first film to open on over 500 screens since his Old Boy remake in 2013, and will hopefully be sticking around the top of the box office now that it’s earned a glowing A- CinemaScore.
The other new wide release this weekend was LD Entertainment’s Dog Days, starring Nina Dobrev and Vanessa Hudgens. The canine comedy opened at number 12 with a paltry $2.6 million. Perhaps the dog days are over for this one.
At the specialty box office, 2018 continued to be a great year for docs with Morgan Neville’s Won’t You Be My Neighbor rising to a total $21.6 million – surely almost as many tears as it’s wiped from Mister Rogers-loving audiences. Another notable debut was Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, starring breakout Helena Howard and House of Cards‘ Molly Parker. The experimental drama only opened on one 100-seat screen in one theater in New York City this past weekend, and earned an impressive $20,225. The film expands to Los Angeles and other theaters this coming weekend.
Gallery – The Highest Grossing Movies of All Time: