'Suicide Squad' Drops Big, But Remains #1 as 'Sausage Party' Eats Up the Box Office
Despite Suicide Squad's large, to-be-expected second weekend drop, the film pulled in more than enough to hold off all newcomers for a second weekend at number one at the box office as it now totals more than $465 million worldwide. Meanwhile, Sony's R-rated animated comedy Sausage Party scored a strong second place finish, ahead of fellow new releases including Disney's reboot of Pete's Dragon and Paramount's release of Florence Foster Jenkins. Overall the top twelve totaled $157.8 million, up 16% from last year.
At the top of the chart, Suicide Squad dropped 67.3% for an estimated $43.7 million, almost spot on what we were expecting after its opening weekend seven days ago. The film's domestic cume is now up to $222.8 million while it added another $58.7 million in its second weekend internationally, bringing its global cume to $465.3 million after 12 days in worldwide release. Suicide Squad ranks eleventh worldwide among all 2016 releases and seventh among live action releases.
In second place Sony's Sausage Party delivered a solid $33.6 million opening (including $3.25m from Thursday night) from 3,103 theaters. Heading into the weekend studio expectations were a very conservative low-to-mid teens for the R-rated animated feature, which went into the weekend with an impressive RottenTomatoes score that now stands at 82%. Despite the low studio expectations, the film's opening weekend shouldn't come as too much of a surprise as it is right in line with Ted 2's $33.5 million opening last year, which went on to gross just another of $81 million. The glaring difference between the two films, however, is the $68 million budget for Ted 2 while the reported budget for Sausage Party is only $19 million.
Looking ahead, while Sausage Party scored with critics, opening day audiences gave the film a so-so "B" CinemaScore compared to a "B+" for Ted 2. It's tough to say how exactly this will play out next weekend as a comparison to Ted 2 suggests a 65% second weekend drop, which seems steep, but given the strong opening and the number of this year's openers that have suffered steep second weekend drops it doesn't seem altogether unlikely.
Finishing third is Disney's Pete's Dragon, a remake of the 1977 classic that also played well with critics but it wasn't able to overwhelm at the box office. Scoring an estimated $21.5 million from 3,702 theaters, the film's performance is reminiscent of Disney's July release The BFG, which also carried strong reviews into the weekend only to deliver $18.7 million in its first three days.
Pete's Dragon's audience breakdown was very similar to BFG's, playing 47% male vs 53% female, though it did skew a little younger as 33% of the audience was 12 and under, a six percent jump compared to BFG. The film did score an "A" CinemaScore, which is a slight improvement over the "A-" for The BFG, but judging by current IMDb page view data, Pete's Dragon is actually performing behind BFG at the same point in the release cycle and unless we see some kind of surge in the coming days, Pete's Dragon could be looking at a domestic total right around the film's $65 million budget.
Internationally Pete's Dragon debuted in twelve territories, delivering an estimated $5.1 million including $1.5 million from Russia, $1.4 million from Italy and $1.1 million from the UK. Next weekend sees openings in France and Spain along with Iceland, Hungary, India and Trinidad.
The weekend's final new wide release is Paramount's Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep, which debuted with an estimated $6.58 million from 1,528 theaters. This almost lines up exactly with Streep's Ricki and the Flash, which debuted in early August last year with $6.6 million from 1,603 theaters before going on to gross $26.8 million. The film scored an "A-" CinemaScore (much better than Ricki's "B") and played to an audience that was 61% female vs 39% male and a whopping 97% of the audience was over the age of 25. Like the weekend's two other wide releases, it too carried a strong RottenTomatoes rating into the weekend as it currently sits at 86%.
Elsewhere in the top ten Jason Bourne dropped only 39.2% in its third weekend after that hefty 62% sophomore dip as its cume is now up to $126.7 million. More impressive, however, is Bad Moms, which only dropped 18.2% in its third weekend as the R-rated comedy is now up to an impressive $71.4 million domestically on a $20 million budget.
Bad Moms also continued its roll-out internationally, adding another nine markets this weekend as it pulled in an estimated $6.2 million from 30 total markets for an international cume of $13.6 million and a worldwide gross that stands at $85 million.
Among the weekend's limited releases, Bleecker Street's Anthropoid brought in an estimated $1.2 million from 452 theaters while Lionsgate's Hell or High Water brought in an estimated $592,000 from 32 theaters for a $18,500 per theater average, the best of the weekend.
Other limited releases include 26 Aries' The Lost Arcade, which debuted with an estimated $7,500 from one theater; IFC's Disorder opened with an estimated $12,000 from two theaters; and The Orchard's Ghost Team was hardly a blip on the spectrometer, opening with a mere $9,205 from ten theaters, for a $921 per theater average.
In other news, Finding Dory climbed another notch on the all-time domestic chart as it has passed Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace to become the seventh highest grossing domestic release of all-time with $476.8 million. Additionally, Disney's The Jungle Book opened in Japan this weekend, its final international market, and grossed an estimated $6.2 million as its international cume is now up to $584.8 million for a worldwide total just shy of $1 billion at $947.8 million.
Fox's X-Men: Apocalypse also opened in Japan this weekend, scoring half of what The Jungle Book delivered at an estimated $3.1 million as the film's global cume now sits at $539.7 million, more than $200 million less than 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Finally, Universal Pictures International crossed the $1 billion mark this weekend for the tenth consecutive year. Adding to the cume this weekend was The Secret Life of Pets, which opened in six new markets this weekend and grossed an estimated $40 million as its international cume is now up to $256.7 million for a worldwide cume just shy of $600 million at $592.6 million. Additionally, Jason Bourne is now over $100 million internationally as it added another $18.6 million this weekend from 59 territories for an international total of $119.4 million and a worldwide total just shy of $250 million at 246.2 million.
Next weekend sees the release of Paramount's Ben-Hur into ~3,000 theaters, Warner Bros. will release War Dogs into 3,100+ theaters and Focus will debut the latest Laika feature, Kubo and the Two Strings into ~3,200 theaters.
