‘The Maze Runner: The Death Cure’ Clings To Life [Box Office]

The January blahs continued this weekend, with only one major movie headed into wide release. And it was the final chapter in a franchise that audiences seemed to have abandoned long ago.

“The Maze Runner: The Death Cure” knocked off reigning champ “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle” with $23.5 million. It’s a weak showing in the last installment in the YA series. The original “The Maze Runner” opened with $32 million, the followup “The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” launched with $30 million, but it’s clear that Fox could never ramp up this series to a wider audience. Worse, even fans of the series seemed to have moved on (or will wait for ‘The Death Cure’ to hit Netflix and home video). Certainly, the critical injuries to star Dylan O’Brien during production which delayed filming and pushed back the release date probably didn’t help the series keep whatever momentum it had moving. All told, this adventure is over, and will likely be chalked up as a post-“Twilight” franchise curio.

‘The Maze Runner: The Death Cure’ Exits The Franchise The Same Way It Arrived

Elsewhere, things were pretty quiet, but there was some interesting movement. Christian Bale‘s intense western “Hostiles” expanded into wide releases and cracked the top three with a respectable $10.3 million. For a film with modest promotion and expectations, it’s a good result. It’s actually one of Bale’s best wide release launches outside of “The Dark Knight” trilogy (it’s in “3:10 To Yuma” territory).

Fox Searchlight pushed their leading Oscar nominee “The Shape Of Water” into 1,000 more cinemas for a total just over 1,800 and it resulted in a nice $5.7 million weekend for the lovely fantasy film. Meanwhile, Indian flick “Padmaavat” made the grade with $4.2 million, from just 324 screens, and even with a running time of nearly three hours — it had the best per-screen-average($13,188) of any movie playing this weekend.

In box office milestones, the aforementioned “Jumanji” may have slipped from the top slot after three weeks at #1, but the movie has amassed a whopping $822 million after less than 6 weeks in theaters. This means, you’ve got a movie likely looking like it’ll hit the coveted $1 billion mark. No wonder Sony is confident enough to match the film against “Star Wars: Episode IX” in 2019. ‘Jumanji’ is doing astonishingly well and dipped only -15.9% in this sixth week in theaters. This is a movie that hasn’t dropped more than 30% in any one weekend so far which means the hold it has on audiences is remarkable. Compare it to “Justice League” at home a movie that has stalled at $227 million domestically after 10 weeks compared to “Jumanji’s $338M North American total.

Checking in with “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the Lucasfilm picture has fallen outside of the top 10, but has still made $610 million domestically so far. It is currently the 6th highest grossing film of all time in North America and could still surpass “The Avengers” for the 5th slot ($623M is the magic number to beat). Globally, ‘Last Jedi’ has hit $1.31 billion and is the 9th highest grossing film of all time. But, without that big China boost (the movie underperformed in that territory), it’s likely not going to bust many more records.

We should also mention there’s no slowing down “The Greatest Showman.” While you may not have seen it, the movie has quietly grossed $259 million worldwide and $126M domestically. That’s huge for a movie with middling reviews and one that nobody saw as a hit.

In case you want to know how some of the leading Oscar contenders are doing, well, they’re doing quite well, actually. “Ladybird” has flown to $41 million total so far making it A24‘s highest grossing movie to date, surpassing “Moonlight” by some distance;”Darkest Hour” has clocked in at $45M so far; “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” has amassed $37M at home and an impressive $71M worldwide; “I, Tonya,” has nearly hit $20 million and “Call Me by Your Name” ($11M),  and “Phantom Thread” ($10M) are doing solid business too.

1. “The Maze Runner: The Death Cure” — $23.5 million
2. “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle” — $16.4 million ($338 mil.)
3. “Hostiles” —$10.2 million ($12 mil.)
4. “The Greatest Showman” — $9.5 million ($126.4 mil.)
5. “The Post” — $8.8 million ($58.5 mil.)
6. “12 Strong” — $8.6 million ($29.7 mil.)
7. “Den Of Thieves” — $8.3 million ($28.5 mil.)
8. “The Shape Of Water” — $5.7 million ($37.6 mil.)
9. “Paddington 2” — $5.5 million ($32 mil.)
10. “Padmaavat” — $4.2 million