Proving that worn out, tried ideas still have life in them, Jigsaw, Lionsgate’s pretty much reboot of their inexplicably popular Saw horror films was, not to anyone’s surprise, No. 1 this weekend with $16.2 million. I have to admit, I’ve ever saw the appeal of horror film in which the basic concept is coming up with ideas of various horrifically grisly ways to kill off people, then constructing a thin storyline to tie them in, but then there you go.
But even then, compared to other Saw films, Jigsaw didn’t even do that well being the second lowest weekend opening for any Saw or Saw reboot) film after Saw VI. There’s no doubt there will be a huge second-week drop off, and Lionsgate will probably actually lose money on the film.
And speaking of dropoffs, Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, dropped off big this weekend some 53 percent from last week. Though it still did well enough to come in second with $10 million and $35 million total so far, that’s well below what last year’s Boo! film did. That means that Boo 2 won’t even come close to matching what the first Boo film did. Is Perry played out for now and can he make yet another comeback?
And still staying with second-week dropoffs even worse was Warner Bros.’ Geostorm, which bombed last week and dropped even bigger this weekend some 58 percent with $5.6 million and just a measly $23.5 million to-date which is disastrous for the $125 million film.
As for new films this weekend the news is also pretty grim. The Universal film, Thank You For Your Service, about an Irag war veteran coming to grips with PTSD, performed miserably at the box office with just $3.7 million. But the George Clooney satire Suburbicon which he co-wrote and directed performed even worse pulling in a horrendous $2.8 million meaning audiences just couldn’t make out what the film was about, and even if they did, they weren’t interested despite the name power of Matt Damon in the lead.
So far, this has been turning out to be a really lousy fall film season for film studios and distributors. What they’re churning out sure isn’t clicking with filmgoers. They have to be hoping that November will show better results since the upcoming holiday film season right now isn’t looking too promising.
So what is doing well? Happy Death Day for Blumhouse/Universal with $48 million to date isn’t one of Blumhouse’s bigger box office grossers of late, but with the film very small $5 million budget and worldwide gross so far of $68 million has done very well. It continues to just keep making money with $656.5 million worldwide and Tom Cruise’s modestly-budgeted American Made still continues to be modest worldwide sleeper hit with $129 million worldwide so far.
Full list:
1) Jigsaw LGF $16,250,000 –
2) Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween LGF $10,000,000 Total: $35,521,643
3) Geostorm WB $5,675,000 Total: $23,553,368
4) Happy Death Day Uni. $5,099,000 Total: $48,393,525
5) Blade Runner 2049 WB $3,965,000 Total: $81,385,785
6) Thank You for Your Service Uni. $3,702,000
7) Only The Brave Sony $3,450,000 Total: $11,940,057
8) The Foreigner STX $3,210,000 Total: $28,827,318
9) Suburbicon Par. $2,800,000
10) It WB (NL) $2,465,000 Total: $323,730,202
11) American Made Uni. $1,695,000 Total: $17,712,2391
