Weekend Box Office: ‘Jumanji’ Ain’t Playing Around
Pop question: Who’s stronger than Thor and the Justice League? The answer, at least from a box office perspective, is The Rock. After another impressive weekend in theaters, his Jumamji: Welcome to the Jungle has now outgrossed both of the fall’s big superhero releases. Here’s the full weekend box office chart:
Film | Weekend | Per Screen | Total | |
1 | Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | $20,040,000 (-28%) | $5,410 | $316,985,148 |
2 | 12 Strong | $16,500,000 | $5,496 | $16,500,000 |
3 | Den of Thieves | $15,320,000 | $6,299 | $15,320,000 |
4 | The Post | $12,150,000 (-37%) | $4,262 | $45,191,402 |
5 | The Greatest Showman | $11,000,000 (-11%) | $3,897 | $113,480,607 |
6 | Paddington 2 | $8,240,000 (-25%) | $2,226 | $25,041,233 |
7 | The Commuter | $6,685,000 (-51%) | $2,312 | $25,708,529 |
8 | Star Wars: The Last Jedi | $6,566,000 (-44%) | $2,673 | $604,284,476 |
9 | Insidious: The Last Key | $5,945,000 (-52%) | $2,335 | $58,728,265 |
10 | Forever My Girl | $4,703,070 | $4,218 | $4,703,070 |
Jumanji’s $316.9 million puts it in seventh place among 2017 domestic grossers, and it should pass It, the year’s other biggest surprise hit, for sixth place in the next week or two. It will probably pass Spider-Man: Homecoming after that to enter the top five, putting it behind only Star Wars, Beauty and the Beast, Wonder Woman, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for the entire year. That’s an impressive result for a movie based on a single movie that was released over 20 years ago, and returned to theaters with a new premise (kids sucked into a video game instead of a board game) and a totally new cast (Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black, in addition to Dwayne Johnson). Few predicted the film performing so well in theaters. This is why you don’t underestimate good ol’ Franchise Viagra.
Speaking of Thor, the weekend’s biggest debut belonged to Chris Hemsworth’s new war movie 12 Strong. It opened in second place, with an estimated $16.5 million. That makes it Hemsworth’s biggest opening weekend outside of his franchise work with Marvel, Star Trek, and the Snow White movies. The war film got an “A” rating from audiences polled by CinemaScore. Expect a (12) strong second weekend for the film as well.
The third place film was another debut, the crime picture Den of Thieves. That movie earned $15.3 million in its opening weekend. Although it only got a B+ from CinemaScore, it also outperformed Box Office Mojo’s predictions for the weekend. In fourth place was The Post, which has now made $45 million after just two weekends in wide release. $10 million more and the film will have already passed director Steven Spielberg’s last movie, The BFG. Fifth place for the weekend was the holiday season’s biggest word-of-mouth hit, The Greatest Showman. The Hugh Jackman circus musical dropped just 11 percent from last weekend and earned an estimated $11 million. It’s now made over $113 million in the U.S. Given what a gamble a circus musical was, even with Jackman in the lead role, that’s a very solid result for distributor Fox.
With few new high-profile limited releases in theaters, the best per-screen average of the weekend belonged to Hostiles, a would-be awards contender that never really caught on with critics. Starring Christian Bale and directed by Scott Cooper, Hostiles made about $8,000 per screen at 49 locations around the country, for a total of $392,000. Den of Thieves had the second best PSA with $6,299. People love their Gerard Butler crime pictures.