As this weekend approached, box office analysts predicted that the #1 spot would be a battle between the animated threequel “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” and Dwayne Johnson’s “Die Hard” knock-off, “Skyscraper.” While ‘Hotel Transylvania’ did what was expected, “Skyscraper” ended up burning to the ground, so to speak.
Coming in at #1, surprising no one, is ‘Hotel Transylvania 3,’ with a weekend total of $44.1 million. This is on the upper side of estimates and falls right in line with the previous two entries in the franchise. As a matter of fact, ‘Summer Vacation’ comes in right above the first ‘Transylvania’ and a few million dollars behind the second film, which debuted in 2015. Sony has to be pleased with this showing, especially with “Incredibles 2” still getting decent attendance and chomping away at the kids’ movie audience.
Now, the news is not nearly as good for the other big new film this weekend. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s “Skyscraper” came in well below expectations with a dismal $25.5 million this weekend. That’s good enough for a #3 show, behind last week’s leader “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” While $25.5 million is hardly the worst opening ever, the total is one of the worst for the film’s star and doesn’t bode well for profitability. With an estimated budget of $125 million (keep in mind, you can always add a good 10%-20% on top of that), Universal is banking on the foreign grosses to bring this film to the black.
REVIEW: The Rock Hangs Over Hong Kong And Dies Hard In ‘Skyscraper’ [Review]
This total also shows that not even The Rock is guaranteed box office gold anymore. While the reviews haven’t been great for “Skyscraper” (51% on Rotten Tomatoes), normally Johnson’s films are critic-proof. However, the $25.5 million opening for this new film is the worst for the actor since 2009’s “Pain and Gain.” And to put that in perspective, “Pain and Gain” only carried a $26 million budget and debuted at $20 million.
To accurately show just how bad this debut is for The Rock, you have to look at his recent track record. Taking franchise films out of the equation (“Fast and Furious” and “Jumanji”), Dwayne Johnson’s stock as guaranteed box office gold is quickly falling. “Rampage” vastly underperformed earlier this year. “Baywatch,” which an adult comedy, had a big cast and also was a dud at the box office. The last time a pure Dwayne Johnson action film did well was 2015’s “San Andreas,” which debuted at $54.6 million. While he’ll continue to bring big bucks to the “Fast and Furious” and “Jumanji” franchises, one has to wonder if the days of the actor getting $100+ million budgets for his solo action films are going away.
Moving on to last week’s winner, “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” the superhero film fell -62% to $28.8 million. While most Marvel films fall between 55% and 60%, they have to be a little concerned by this number. Yes, ‘Ant-Man 2’ carries a smaller budget, and will no doubt get to profitability, but it just appears that the ‘Ant-Man’ franchise doesn’t have the ability to grow film-to-film in the way that the studio probably hopes. But again, Marvel Studios clearly will have another hit on their hands, just not as impressive as the rest of their catalog.
As for the other big films in the top 10, “Incredibles 2” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” performed as expected, and their astronomical domestic totals are now at $535 million and $363 million, respectively. “The First Purge” also held well in its second weekend, dropping less than 50%, for a weekend total of $9.1 million and a domestic total of $49.5 million.
Vaulting into the top 10 at #7 is the indie film, “Sorry to Bother You,” which expanded to just over 800 theaters and a weekend total of $4.3 million. This is a great total, and we’ll have to see how it performs over the next few weeks.
As far as per-theater-averages go, the two big winners this weekend were newbies “Eighth Grade” and “Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot.” Bo Burnham’s coming-of-age flick “Eighth Grade” had an incredible $63,071 per theater in the 4 theaters it showed on this weekend. That’s the best per-theater-average of 2018.
Also at 4 theaters was ‘Don’t Worry,’ which had an average of $20,780. If these films can keep this momentum going, as they expand more nationally, you could be looking at two surprise hits this summer. This is especially true of “Eighth Grade,” which has the real ability to crossover into a mainstream audience due to its subject matter and filmmaker involved.
Here’s the entire top 10 for July 13 to July 15:
1. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation — $44.1M (Debut)
2. Ant-Man and the Wasp — $28.8M ($132.8M Total)
3. Skyscraper — $25.5M (Debut)
4. Incredibles 2 — $16.2M ($535M)
5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — $15.5M ($363M)
6. The First Purge — $9.1M ($49.5M)
7. Sorry to Bother You — $4.3M ($5.3M)
8. Sicario: Day of the Soldado — $3.85M ($43M)
9. Uncle Drew — $3.23M ($36.7M)
10. Ocean’s 8 — $2.9M ($132M)