As hoped/expected, A Star Is Born held up well on its second Friday, earning another $8.5 million (-46%) to bring its eight-day-cume to $75m. At a glance, we’re probably looking at a $28.195m (-34%) second weekend and a $94.3m ten-day cume for Warner Bros. and MGM’s $36m—budgeted Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga romantic drama. That weekend drop is on par with The Martian (-31%) but not quite in the same league as Gone Girl (-29%) or Gravity (-22%). Nonetheless, The Martian earned 4x its opening weekend, so that’s still a healthy place to be.
It will eventually start earning more than Venom on a day-to-day basis, but we’ll see if it can catch up in terms of total domestic box office. Venom opened much higher than even we optimists presumed, and it frankly held on better (a 57% second-weekend drop) than most of us expected. But the two films aren’t really in competition beyond arbitrary bragging rights. What’s important for the Bradley Cooper-directed musical is that it’s still tops among adult moviegoers and taking its place as the babysitter-worthy movie of the season.
And with comparatively teen-targeted offerings like Halloween and The Hate U Give opening wide next weekend, and with Bad Times at the El Royale mostly DOA, A Star Is Born and First Man will be dominating the adult audience demographic (save for nostalgic grown-ups flocking to the R-rated Halloween) until Bohemian Rhapsody on Nov. 2 and Widows on Nov. 16. Yes, as shown by The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born and presumably Bohemian Rhapsody, musicals are as safe of a box office bet as they’ve ever been. But you knew that.
In other holdover news that isn’t A Star Is Born or Venom (a likely $32 million second weekend and $141m ten-day total), Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.’s Smallfoot earned another $2.1m (-38%) to cross $50m domestic. The well-received toon should earn around $8.8m (-39%) to bring its 17-day cume to $57.1m. Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish’s Night School earned $2.1m (-41%) on its third Friday for a likely $7.5m (-40%) weekend and $59m 17-day cume. That’s a solid figure for a $29m comedy that may yet play just fine overseas.
Fox 2000 expanded George Tillman Jr.’s The Hate U Give into 246 theaters in advance of its wide release on the 19th. The dynamite Amandla Stenberg-starring YA drama earned $522k (+199%) on Friday for a likely $1.5 million second-weekend gross. That’s a promising $6k per-theater average and $2.2m ten-day domestic total. Based on Angie Thomas’s novel and adapted by the late Audrey Wells, this one’s a new classic. It’s both knee-deep in the #BlackLivesMatter movement and a potent deconstruction of the Young Adult Fantasy genre, and is one of the year’s best movies.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Forbes