'Night School' Wins the Weekend
by EG
Comedies still don't deliver huge box office like superhero movies do, but Kevin Hart's Night School is the latest comedy to prove that the genre can deliver respectable ticket sales, assuming they happen to actually be funny. Read on for details about this weekend's box-office results.
Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish's raucous comedy Night School laughed its way to the top of the box-office chart, beating the overall comedy curse in opening to $28 million from 3,010 theaters.
The film reunites director Malcolm D. Lee, producer Will Packer and Universal, the winning trio behind the 2017 box-office hit Girls Trip, which debuted to $31 million in summer 2017. Thanks to an ethnically perse audience, Night School scored the best debut for a broad comedy since Girls Trip. Another exception to the comedy slump is Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu's rom-com that opened to $26.5 million in August on its way to earning nearly $220 million globally.
Heading into the weekend, some tracking services suggested Night School — cementing Haddish's star status after her breakout role in Girls Trip — could clear $31 million in its domestic launch. One hitch may have been generally weak reviews; Night School bears a 31 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, compared to 90 percent for Girls Trip.
Lee's latest comedy, which earned a far better A- CinemaScore from audiences, follows a group of misfits who are forced to attend night school in order to pass their GED exams (Haddish plays their teacher). Rob Riggle, Taran Killam, Romany Malco and Keith David round out the cast. In addition to starring, Hart is among the producers.
Caucasians made up 37 percent of ticket buyers, followed by African-Americans (30 percent), Hispanics (24 percent), Asian (5 percent) and other (4 percent), according to Universal.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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