'The Predator' Wins a Sleepy September Weekend
by EG
The Predator didn't exactly set the box office on fire in its opening weekend, but last week's number one, The Nun, had an even weaker second week. That left The Predator on top. Read on for more results from the weekend.
Shane Black's reboot The Predator led a ho-hum weekend at the North American box office with $24 million, enough to top the chart but coming in behind expectations.
Overseas, the $88 million Fox movie opened to an even more disappointing $30.7 million from 72 markets for a lackluster global start of $54.7 million.
Playing in 4,037 theaters domestically — the fifth widest release in history for an R-rated title — the male-fueled, sci-fi action pic was dinged by lousy reviews and a C+ CinemaScore. Heading into the weekend, tracking showed the film earning $30 million or more, well ahead of Predators in 2010 ($24.8 million), not adjusted for inflation.
The Predator, which premiered earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, was also the subject of controversy in the final days before its launch when star Olivia Munn revealed Fox had cut a scene after she informed the studio that an actor and acquaintance of Black's with a small role in the movie, Steven Wilder Striegel, was a registered sex offender.
Box-office observers don't believe the headlines had any impact on the film, which skewed heavily male (62 percent) and older. "I think it changed the mind of anyone who was predestined to go," says Chris Aronson, domestic distribution president for Fox.
Black's film opened more than 30 years after the first Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of an elite military team fighting off a menacing extraterrestrial, hit the big screen. This time out, Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Munn, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen and Sterling K. Brown star as the Predator-battling gang.
New Line's The Nun came in No. 2 after falling a steep 66 percent to $18.2 million from 3,876 locations in its second outing. That's the biggest drop of any title in the Conjuring universe of films.
Regardless, The Nun is a big win for New Line and parent studio Warner Bros., considering its modest budget of $22 million. Overseas, it beat The Predator with $33.1 million from 62 markets in its sophomore weekend for a foreign total of $143.6 million and $228.7 million globally (its domestic cume through Sunday is $85.1 million).
Coming in third in North America was Paul Feig's new neo-noir comedy A Simple Favor, a bright spot on the weekend in beating expectations with $16.1 million from 3,201 locations. Starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and Henry Golding of Crazy Rich Asians fame, the Lionsgate release is a marked departure for Feig, the filmmaker behind such comedic romps as Bridesmaids.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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