The huge launch of the new buzzy horror flick Us proved three things. First, that horror is the most reliable genre outside of superheroes for automatically high grosses. Second, that Get Out was no one hit wonder and Jordan Peele's name in the director's chair is something to remain excited about. Third, that Lupita Nyong'o has zero trouble carrying a big picture as its leading lady (which we knew the second we fell for her in 12 Years a Slave but it took six long years for it to actually become fact.) Please no more voice or mo-cap roles, are you listening Hollywood/Lupita's management? We want HER onscreen, not just her voice onscreen with her glamour on red carpets. More after the jump...
| Weekend Box Office (Estimates) (March 22nd-24th) / 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts |
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| W I D E |
PLATFORM / LIMITED |
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| 1 🔺 Us $70.2 on 3741 screens *NEW* SNEAK PEAK, REVIEW |
1 🔺 Gloria Bell $1.8 (cum. $2.4) on 654 screens REVIEW, JULI LEADS |
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| 2 Captain Marvel $35 (cum. $321.4) on 4278 screens REVIEW |
2 No Manches Frida 2 $1.7 (cum. $6.6) on 472 screens |
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| 3 Wonder Park $9 (cum. $29.4) on 3838 screens |
3 Apollo 11 $800k on 586 screens (cum. $6.8) |
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| 4 Five Feet Apart $8.7 (cum. $26.4)on 2866 screens |
4 Badla $237k (cum. $1.7) on 97 screens |
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| 5 How To Train Your Dragon 3 $6.5 (cum. $145.7) on 3347 screens | 5 🔺 The Mustang $228k on 38 screens (cum. $321k) |
What did you see this weekend? Films not making the top five but nevertheless which had good weekends were the haunting German drama Transit (review / interview) which picked up a couple dozen more theaters and is nearing $400,000 at arthouses, and Hotel Mumbai (review) which opened to $86k on 4 screens.
It's also worth noting that Oscar nominated Never Look Away inched past the magic $1 million mark in its 17th week of release, reminding us again how unusually popular this past season's Oscar nominees in the foreign film category were (it's extremely rare to have a year where all five are hits -- even four of the five crossing $1 million is unusual -- and this past season all five were if you count Roma, though we'll never know how much that one made since Netflix refused to report figures. For all we know it flopped in limited release while everyone waited to watch it on Netflix)