It was a very sleepy weekend at the box office, allowing Sully to land in first place again, with just a 37% drop to $22 million, which places it in a great position to eventually cross $100 million at the box office. That will make it Tom Hanks's highest grossing film since Angels and Demons, as Captain Phillips ended its run with $107 million back in 2013. The movie also benefited from facing basically zero competition this weekend, as pretty much all the newcomers failed to make a dent on the charts.
The first of those was Blair Witch, a sequel to the 1999 classic that got terrible reviews and a very rare "D+" Cinemascore, coming in second place with over $9 million but unlikely to stick around long after this debut. In third was Bridget Jones's Baby, the second sequel to 2001's romantic comedy. This one got much better reviews than 2004's Edge of Reason (it's at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes), yet opened to just $8 million, almost exactly what the last movie did on its first weekend 12 years ago. Better news for Bridget Jones fans is that it did record breaking numbers in the UK and Ireland, where interest in the franchise is still very high, so overseas numbers will help the movie make its budget back. Oliver Stone's Snowden came in fourth with $8 million as well, after mixed reviews did not help the movie to find much of an audience, and Don't Breathe rounded out the top five on its way to a domestic cume of around $90 million total.
Top 5:
- Sully- $22 million
- Blair Witch- $9.7 million
- Bridget Jones's Baby- $8.2 million
- Snowden- $8 million
- Don't Breathe- $5.6 million
In limited release, Ron Howard's Beatles documentary about their early touring years had a pretty nice opening, with $615k from 84 theaters, so it looks like people still love their Fab Four, which is pretty cool to see. Next week sees the opening of Denzel Washington's Magnificent Seven remake and the animated Storks movie, so we'll see you all back here then, as September rolls on.
