What a strange but heartening weekend at the box office. There wasn’t much going on in terms of new releases, at least so we thought. The biggest, buzziest film in release, “The Circle,” with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, was killed by critics just days before its release and so everyone assumed that the picture would end up a box-office turkey — correctly, it turns out. But two pictures came out of nowhere to stun and surprise. Talk about underserved audiences showing up for pictures aimed at their demo! Ken Marino‘s “How To Be A Latin Lover,” with Eugenio Derbez and Salma Hayek, shocked and became Pantelion Films’ (distributed by Lionsgate) highest-opening film ever with a super-impressive $12 million from 1,118 screens. Performing even stronger statistically was Great India Films‘ “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” a movie you probably didn’t even hear of that grossed $10.1 million this weekend from 425 screens for a similarly remarkable $23,855 per-screen average (the highest of any indie or wide release this weekend). The success of both will raise eyebrows, and surely Pantelion and Great India Films will be looking not only at further sequels, but how to replicate these metrics with other films in their wares.
Keeping at number one at the box office for the third week in a row was “The Fate Of The Furious,” which is zeroing in on $200 million domestically. Perhaps more importantly, as expected, ‘Furious 8’ has cracked the $1 billion mark ($1,060,321,355), currently the second film to have done so in 2017. It did so in approximately 18 days, which would make it, just under “Furious 7,” as the fourth-fastest movie to hit the $1 billion mark ever.
READ MORE: ‘The Fate Of The Furious’ Deserves To Make All Of The Money [Review]
Elsewhere at the box office, “Beauty And The Beast” showed little sign of slowing down and hit the $1.4 billion mark. Incredibly, “The Boss Baby” is still in the top 5, has a super glue-like hold and will crack $400 million globally sometime soon. This just could be the biggest surprise success of 2017 so far. Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight is probably feeling a little bit better about “Gifted” now. The family drama/romantic story opened up to mediocre reviews and numbers, but as an indie with a modest budget, its $15 million gross so far is probably making the company rest a little easier.
In limited release, the street-magic super-hero indie “Sleight” posted the highest numbers ($1.7 million) but one of the more unimpressive theater counts considering the number of screens it was on (565 for a low $2,991 PSA). “One Week And A Day,” “Buster’s Mal Heart,” and “Bang! The Bert Berns Story” all opened to limited success.
Meanwhile, while the blockbuster hasn’t opened up at home yet, Marvel’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2” opened up abroad and has already grossed $101 million from 37 markets. That’s trending 52% up from the last film at the same mark. Can this Marvel movie crack $1 billion? That might be getting a little too ahead of itself (the last one grossed $773 million world-wide), but we shall see. The space-odyssey super-hero movie opens next week in U.S. theaters (and China, watch out) and presumably can top the $94 million opening the first film opened up to in 2014.
1.The Fate of the Furious— $19,389,780 ($192,721,355)
2. How to be a Latin Lover — $12,018,500
3. Baahubali 2: The Conclusion —$10,138,189 –
4. The Circle — $9,320,000 –
5. The Boss Baby —$9,050,000 ($148,465,584)
6. Beauty and the Beast —$6,400,000 ($480,100,233
7. Going in Style —$3,580,000 ($37,319,770)
8. Smurfs: The Lost Village — $3,315,000 –
9. Gifted — $3,300,000 ($15,830,025)
10. Unforgettable — $2,345,000 ($8,883,819)