by Nathaniel R
| Weekend Box Office (March 9th-11th) Estimates |
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| W I D E 800+ screens |
L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide |
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| 1. Black Panther $41.1 (cum. $562) PODCAST |
1. 🔺 Thoroughbreds $1.2 on 549 screens NEW REVIEW |
| 2. 🔺 A Wrinkle in Time (pictured) $33.3 NEW REVIEW | 2. 🔺 A Fantastic Woman (pictured) $287k on 166 screens (cum. $1.1) REVIEW | OSCAR WIN |
| 3.🔺 Strangers Prey at Night $10.4 NEW |
3.🔺 The Death of Stalin $181k on 4 screens NEW REVIEW |
| 4. Red Sparrow $8.1 (cum. $31.1) REVIEW | JENNIFER IN VERSACE |
4. 🔺 The Leisure Seeker $119k on 28 screens NEW |
| 5. Game Night $7.9 (cum. $45) REVIEW |
5. The Party $98k on 91 screens (cum. $483k) |
It's a history-making weekend at the box office. For the first time ever the two top grossers are both from African-American directors. Ryan Coogler's Black Panther continues its astonishing run. It's now the biggest non-Star Wars hit since Jurassic World three years ago and The Avengers before that six years ago and likely to outgross them both). It was also opening weekend for Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time. $33 million for a movie with no bankable stars that's not a sequel is good though people are calling it a failure due to its heavy price tag. How the Oscars affected the box office after the jump...
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| 6. Peter Rabbit $6.8 (cum. $93.4) | 6. 🔺 Loveless (pictured) $54k on 37 screens (cum. $303k) REVIEW |
| 7. Death Wish $6.6 (cum. $23.8) | 7. La Boda de Valentina $41k on 45 screens (cum. $2.7) |
| 8. 🔺 The Hurricane Heist $3.1 NEW |
8. Foxtrot $29k on 6 screens (cum. $112k) |
| 9. Annihilation (pictured) $3.1 (cum. $26) | 9. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool $21k on 41 screens (cum. $811k) INTERVIEW |
| 10. Jumanji $2.7 (cum. $397.2) | 10. The Insult $19k on 16 screens (cum. $904k) |
| 🔺 = new or expanding its theater count numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo |
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The Oscar ceremony last weekend was a huge boost to two films. Best Picture winner The Shape of Water was up 67% and grossed another 2.5 million (it's now at $148 million globally) while the Foreign Film winner A Fantastic Woman took the opportunity to expand and was rewarded with a 129% jump grossing over a quarter million and pushing its total domestic gross over the important million dollar mark. (Interestingly, director Sebastian Lelio's last Chilean feature, the amazing Gloria, was an even bigger hit at arthouse theaters, grossing $2.1 million in 2014 without Oscar's blessing. He's currently remaking it as an English language feature with Julianne Moore. Can A Fantastic Woman stay open long enough to beat Gloria and become his biggest hit?)
Three Billboards didn't get a bump but its double acting wins helped it nonetheless. It was off just 45% while nearly all the other Best Picture "losers" dropped by 60% or more and surely won't be in theaters next week since most of the titles are now on DVD or are about to be.
What did you see during the weekend? I caught A Wrinkle in Time (and agree with much of Chris Feil's review though I liked it much less). As you read this I'm closing my weekend out with Klute (1971), one of my all-time fav films. It's my first time seeing it on the big screen. Consider me ecstatic right now somewhere in the dark watching peak Fonda.