Weekend Box Office: 'Sully' Bests 'Blair Witch' and 'Bridget Jones'

We knew going into this weekend that the week's new movie releases would have a tough time unseating the defending champ at the box office, but the race wasn't anywhere near as close as expected. Sully easily repeated as the week's winner, and the two biggest new wide releases performed significantly below expectations, setting up a box-office rout that took nearly everyone by surprise.

Sully is set to take in $22 million for the weekend, more than doubling the weekend earnings of its next-closest competitor. Sully's weekend take also represents only a 37 percent drop from last week's $35 million. That's a stellar hold that was no doubt helped by strong word of mouth. Sully's total domestic gross is now around $70 million.

Blair Witch, the sequel to 1999's The Blair Witch Project, will place a distant second for the weekend, but the low-budget horror film's performance has been substantially weaker than even the most pessimistic projections ahead of its release. The most optimistic predictions had Blair Witch earning north of $20 million and taking the top spot away from Sully; the most conservative predictions had Blair Witch taking in just over $10 million and battling for second place.

In the end, Blair Witch isn't even going to hit $10 million for the weekend. Its pace as of early Sunday put its estimated weekend earnings around $9.7 million. That's enough for second place this weekend, but the bad news for Blair Witch is likely to stretch well beyond this week. The film is getting a nearly-unheard-of D+ CinemaScore, a rating given  to a film from moviegoers who've just seen the film, indicating that, on the whole, audiences really don't like Blair Witch.

That translates into very limited positive word of mouth - and probably extensive negative word of mouth. A film that already has severely underperformed in its opening weekend and that gets that kind of negative reaction from audiences is unlikely to be able to recover.

The week's second big new wide release is not doing so well, either. Bridget Jones's Baby, the sequel to 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, is on pace to earn about $8.2 million for the weekend. That's probably going to put the film in third place for the weekend, a spot where it was expected to be regardless of the performance of the films ahead of it. Its earnings are somewhat below expectations, though, which had it taking in closer to $10 million.

The week's third and final new wide release, Oliver Stone's Snowden, is, unlike its fellow newcomers, performing exactly as expected. Most projections had it earning less than $10 million, and it looks like it will earn almost exactly $8 million. The surprise here is that, thanks to Bridget Jones's weak showing, Snowden is within striking distance of third place for the week. After final numbers are released on Monday, Snowden may be able to inch ahead of Jones. Even better news for Snowden is that it's earning an A CinemaScore, suggesting that it could have some life in it even after this weekend.

Although the poor performance of Blair Witch is somewhat surprising given that low-budget horror films have been, in general, doing well this year, the film's failure points out that horror is still far from a sure thing. Films like The Conjuring 2, Lights Out, and Don't Breathe have been unqualified hits, but all of those films have enjoyed solid critics' reviews and favorable audience reaction. Poorly reviewed horror films like Morgan and The Disappointments Room have been among the year's biggest bombs. The lesson is that horror movies can score big when they're good, and they can fail spectacularly when they're not good.

Blair Witch's woes are also in line with the year's trend of underperforming sequels. Again, sequels have been among the year's biggest hits, but they've also been among the year's biggest losers. Audiences have shown a definite lack of enthusiasm for sequels across the board, and both Blair Witch and Bridget Jones are sequels to older films that are well off the radar of young moviegoers. In that light, it's not surprising that they've failed to generate any excitement.

Next week, two new wide releases come into theaters, including Chris Pratt's The Magnificent Seven and the animated family film Storks. That might leave some room for Bridget Jones to continue to lure older female audiences, but with a new action movie to draw younger audiences, Blair Witch's best days are certainly behind it.