'A Quiet Place' Rumbles to Big Weekend Win
by EG
The verdict is in: moviegoers liked John Krasinski's A Quiwt Place much more than they liked Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One. Krasinski's thriller easily won the weekend, performing beyond expectations and pulling in twice as much in ticket sales as Spielberg's sci-fi adventure.
The importance of originality to moviegoers came across loud and clear at the weekend box office.
Paramount's A Quiet Place — a high-concept horror-thriller directed by John Krasinski that has less than three minutes of dialogue — opened to a booming $50 million from 3,508 theaters in North America, well ahead of expectations and one of the top debuts of all time for a horror title behind last year's It ($123.4 million). It's also the second-best three-day bow of the year so far behind Black Panther ($202 million).
A Quiet Place easily scaled the box-office chart to land at No. 1, delivering a needed win for Paramount after a dismal run that had seen the studio fall to No. 11 in domestic market share. The movie was one of the first films that began shooting after Jim Gianopulos arrived as chairman-CEO in spring 2017, meaning he guided the project from start to finish.
Produced by Platinum Dunes and costing a modest $17 million to make, A Quiet Place stars Krasinski opposite real-life wife Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. The story follows a family of four who must remain silent to ward off mysterious creatures that hunt by sound. Rated PG-13, the pic earned a B+ CinemaScore, a great grade for a horror film, and sports a 97 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
Overseas, A Quiet Place opened to a pleasing $21 million from its first 40 markets for a global cume of $71 million, suggesting the pic will be a huge profit generator.
"It's rare for a horror movie to do so well. A Quiet Place has broken free of any genre," says Paramount distribution chief Kyle Davies. "Then there's the experiential aspect of the movie. It's intense and people are engaged from the minute it starts."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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