‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ Suits Up At The Multiplex [Box Office]

All summer long, audiences were wary of sequels and reboots, with many underperforming or outright tanking. And while Fox will likely wind up being happy with the numbers for “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” it’s safe to say they were hoping for a slightly better result.

The sequel found its way to the top of the box office this weekend, knocking out two-week champion “It.” Earning $39 million, Matthew Vaughn‘s R-rated flick only did slightly better than the $36 million bow of ‘The Secret Service’ two years ago. Even more, ‘The Golden Circle’ carries a heftier price tag, with a $104 million budget versus $81 million for the original. While ‘The Secret Service’ was a slow burn success, eventually earning $128 million domestic on its way to $411 million worldwide, it’ll be interesting to see if ‘The Golden Circle’ can manage the same. It faces a much more crowded corridor (the first movie opened in a much quieter February), with Tom Cruise‘s “American Made” dropping next week, and “Blade Runner 2049” arriving the week after — both pictures will likely be strong international earners. It doesn’t look likely that ‘The Golden Circle’ will cross $100 million domestic this time around, if not for the competition, then for the cachet of being something fresh and exciting. All told, it’ll probably do enough business that a third movie isn’t out of the question.

Speaking of diminishing brands, are the ‘LEGO’ movies running out of steam? “The LEGO Movie” came out of the gate strong with $69 million in its opening frame, “The LEGO Batman Movie” dropped a bit with $53 million, and “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” continues that trend, opening this weekend with a mere $21 million. It’s a shockingly low number, and all but assures that ‘Ninjago’ isn’t going to cross $100 million domestic like its predecessors. Moreover, the franchise has always been more or less split pretty evenly between domestic and international, and it’s unlikely the studio is going to be able to lean on foreign ticket sales to make up the gap. Is it time to put away the bricks?

The barely promoted horror “Friend Request” barely got any notifications, chalking up $2.4 million. The budget on the flick was a shade under $10 million, so it’ll probably scrape to break even, if not theatrically, then eventually when it hits VOD.

Landing in nearly 600 cinemas, David Gordon Green‘s “Stronger” starring Jake Gyllenhaal earned $1.7 million which is… fine. The Boston Marathon bombing movie may have suffered from following “Patriots Day,” and certainly wasn’t helped by the respectful but not enthusiastic response out of TIFF.

At the arthouse, “Victoria and Abdul” found its audience in a big way, earning $152,000 on four screens for a per-screen average of $38,000. Never count out the power of Judi Dench. Meanwhile, Emma Stone and Steve Carell got audiences on the court for “Battle Of The Sexes” on 21 screens to the tune of $525,00 for a per-screen average of $25,000.

1. “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” — $39 million
2. “It” — $30 million ($266.3 mil.)
3. “The LEGO Ninjago Movie” — $21.2 million
4. “American Assassin” — $6.2 million ($26.1 mil.)
5. “Home Again” — $#3.3 million ($22.3 mil.)
6. “mother!” — $3.2 million ($13.4 mil.)
7. “Friend Request” — $2.4 million
8. “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” — $1.8 million ($73.5 mil.)
9. “Stronger” — $1.7 million
10. “Wind River” — $1.2 million ($31.6 mil.)