Since we’re now in the absolute dog days doldrums of summer, literally nothing opened this weekend of any consequence (and the same goes for next weekend as well), so why not take a look at how this summer winners fared.
Last week, we analyzed why this summer has been a box office disaster for studios and distributors but there were some successes as well, of course. No surprise the biggest box office worldwide hit was Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which $862.8 grossed worldwide. The second was Warner Bros./DC ‘s Wonder Woman, the success of which surprised many but was a roaring success with $802.3 million worldwide and was the biggest grossing film this summer domestically. Sony/Marvel’s Spider Man: Homecoming came in fourth with $737 million worldwide.
But anyone want to take a guess what was the third-largest grossing film this summer? It was…and hold on to your hats…Wolf Warriors 2. And what is Wolf Warriors 2? Turns out it’s a Chinese Rambo shot in China and South Africa starring and directed by Wu Jing, which has grossed so far $773.6 million in total.
Though it actually was briefly released in the US grossing just $2.5 million, it played to sold out houses in Australia and Malaysia. But in China, it was something else altogether. There the film has grossed to date $771 million, making it the biggest grossing Chinese film ever. And that’s even a more impressive achievement considering that the film just opened in late July just a month ago. Granted, it has a huge advantage in that it opened in some 19,000 screens across the country and there are a whole lot more people in China than in the US and about ten other countries combined, but it’s still impressive nevertheless.
And as you tell from the trailer below, that it definitely is action-packed, but rather routine in plot, with nothing that we haven’t seen before a hundred times. And even more bothersome is that it looks like a lot of black people get killed in the film. I don’t know about you, but that’s a real killer for me.
However, the huge success of Wolf Warriors 2 proves again that if a film has all the right ingredients and is effectively marketed to a specific targeted audience it can be very successful. No, it’s not going to make nearly $800 million dollars, but it can definitely make more than its production cost and make a huge profit like those Bollywood films that occasionally appear on the box office list, like the Latino-themed comedy How to be a Latin Lover which opened earlier this year, or more recently Girls Trip to name a few examples. Who says a film has to “crossover” to be successful?
But as far as this very tepid weekend is concerned last week No.1 film The Hitman’s Bodyguard was again No.1 though it dropped some 53 percent with just over $10 million and $39.6 million so far. Meanwhile, Annabelle: Creation still held the second place position for the second weekend in a row with $7.3 million and almost $77.9 million domestically with another $98.7 million.
The Weinstein Company finally cracked the top ten in who knows how long with two films, the animated film Leap! in third place, though it opened poorly with just $5 million, and the suspense thriller Wild River, written and directed by the screenwriter of Sicario and Hell and High Water, which expanded wider on a thousand more screens and coming in fourth with $9.8 million so far.
Full List
1) The Hitman’s Bodyguard LG/S $10,050,000 -Total: $39,614,004
2) Annabelle: Creation WB (NL) $7,350,000 Total: $77,880,384
3) Leap! Wein. $5,015,500
4) Wind River Wein. $4,410,610 Total: $9,840,823
5) Logan Lucky BST $4,366,894 Total: $15,034,307
6) Dunkirk WB $3,950,000 Total: $172,479,030
7) Spider-Man: Homecoming Sony $2,725,000 Total: $318,843,082
8) Birth of the Dragon BH Tilt $2,501,100
9) The Emoji Movie Sony $2,350,000 Total: $76,431,471
10) Girls Trip Uni. $2,266,745 Total: $108,072,270
11) The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature ORF $2,208,876 Total: $22,443,602
12) Wonder Woman WB $1,685,000 Total: $406,203,061
