'Ocean’s 8' Steals The Box Office Crown From ‘Solo’; ‘Hereditary’ Scares Up Record Grosses

There was never a curse against all-female led franchises; it’s just that, one of the first ones in our modern era, “Ghostbusters,” was rather awful and audiences rejected it (and yes, a subspecies of morons also retaliated against it hard). Thankfully, since man babies feel no special attachment to the “Ocean’s” films, and the Gary Ross-picture is pretty good, the new “Ocean‘s 8” film starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and more, did superb business at the box office this weekend. Costing a reasonable $70 million, Ross’ new ‘Ocean’’s’ picture grossed $41.5 million in its opening weekend and should likely do well for the next few weeks of the summer as a kind of alternate programmer to the male-dominated genre fare out there. Will it launch a new franchise? It’s hard to tell, but ‘8’ now hold the record for the highest opening weekend gross of any of the previous Steven Soderbergh-directed films, so that’s a big win.

‘Ocean’s’ swimming up top means that “Solo: A Star Wars Story” sunk a little bit, but the relatively good news for the beleaguered Lucasfilm picture is that in the crucial third week, the movie only dropped -48.5%. That’s a pretty good hold and bodes well for ‘Solo’ hitting at least $200 million domestically, but probably not much more. ‘Solo’ is the box office blockbuster cautionary tale of 2018 and it’s possible that the movie will earn even less than “The Empire Strikes Back” grossed in 1980 ($290M is the magic figure it needs to hit to bypass that kind of humiliation). The Ron Howard-directed film has hit $311 million worldwide and is currently expected to land somewhere in the global ballpark of $400-$450 million. Unadjusted for inflation, that would likely leave ‘Solo’ as either the lowest or second lowest grossing film in the entire “Star Wars” franchise, all 10 films released thus far, and possibly just above or below 1983’s “Return Of The Jedi” ($418M) depending where the origin spin-off film ends off.

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Domestically, the story is even worse. At this point, ‘Solo,’ with absolute certainty will earn the ignominious distinction of the lowest grossing film of any ‘Star Wars’ film released in theaters. Even 1997’s “Star Wars: A New Hope” (Special Edition) release will outgross ‘Solo’ by a significant margin ($275.9M). Suffice to say, Lucasfilm is still reeling from this one, is going to wonder for months what went wrong and may have to reconsider both the frequency of their releases—maybe “Star Wars” should be a once-a-year-even? — and what origin spin-off films they green light and consider. I’ve said it before, but if the Han Solo film fails— he’s arguably the most popular character in the entire series—how do you justify standalone movies from much more minor characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett? Time will tell if Lucasfilm loses their nerve.

Elsewhere at the box office, A24’s excellent horror movie “Hereditary” earned a dismal D+ Cinemascore, but scared up an incredible $13 million in its opening bow—a record as A24’s highest opening weekend debut ever (behind two other horror movies, “The Witch,” and “It Comes At Night”). The downside is that Cinemascore could hurt the movie’s legs and word of mouth, but reviews are over the moon and “It Comes A Night” faced the same disappointment from audience exit polls and still made good money. In other new releases, Global Road’s “Hotel Artemis” cracked the top 10 with $3.1 million, but for landing in 2,407 screens, this is a big disappointment for the company.

In limited release Focus Features’ celebrated “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” had a terrific weekend— $470,000 from 29 screens for an excellent $16,207 per screen average, especially high for a documentary—and one assumes that’s because Mr. Rogers is a shining beacon of decency and integrity that audiences crave in our shitty modern times. “Hearts Beat Loud” did even better: $74,053 from 4 screens for an $18,513 PSA.

In box office milestones, “Avengers: Infinity War” hit the $654 million mark in its seventh week and it’s become the fifth highest grossing movie of all time domestically and eventually, conclude as fourth. But here’s the thing. Remember when we told you that ‘Infinity War’ would not outgross “Black Panther” at home and you became extremely upset and said we were trolling audiences? Well, toldja. “Black Panther,” which is like $600K shy of the $700 million mark, simply cannot be beaten at this point. Sorry, guys, but there was a significant probability, and it’s come to pass. Internationally (something we never had an issue with), it’s another story and ‘Infinity War,’ which just received a box office extension in China is just moments away from hitting the $2 billion mark, the highest grossing Marvel film of all time globally.

Meanwhile, although “Deadpool 2” was a big hit, the 20^th Century Fox film just won’t be able to match its predecessor and has slowed down at the box office. Now in its fourth week in theaters, the picture is closing in on $300 million domestically and $700 million worldwide (its currently at $655M), but will likely fall far short of the original film’s domestic gross ($363M) and to a lesser extent, it’s worldwide one ($783M). And “Jurassic World” is coming and likely going to cut into its grosses and every other blockbuster currently in theaters.

Speaking of, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” has already opened overseas in 48 markets and racked up an impressive $151 million international weekend. The film will debut next weekend in the U.S., and while it’s poised to do big business, one can’t help but think there’s no way the film is going to replicate its domestic phenomenon success again: $652 million stateside and the fifth highest grossing film of all time at home.

1. Ocean’s 8— $41,500,000
2. Solo: A Star Wars Story — $15,154,000 ($176,105,474)
3. Deadpool 2 — $13,650,000 ($278,665,541)
4. Hereditary — $13,037,336
5. Avengers: Infinity War — $6,836,000 ($654,733,699)
6. Adrift — $5,050,000 –
7. Book Club —$4,200,000 ($56,874,124)
8. Hotel Artemis — $3,151,118
9. Upgrade — $2,220,000 ($9,209,605)
10. Life of the Party — $2,105,000 ($50,266,577)