Battle at the Box Office 9/30

For the last weekend of September, Dreamworks Animation was on top of the box office charts with their latest release, Abominable.

Abominable took the top spot at the box office with $20.8 million, which while #1 is still on the low end of Dreamworks openings, sitting between Turbo and Flushed Away in the upper 20s.  Probably because it’s one of only a few, it is the highest opening of the year for an original animated feature (i.e. not a sequel or based on existing IP). It’s also only the third original movie of the year to top the box office, alongside Us and Good Boys.  The movie also made $10.3 million internationally for a total of $31.2 million worldwide. The movie cost $75 million and there’s direct competition in a week from The Addams Family, so it might struggle to break even.

Downton Abbey dropped to second with another $14.5 million, bringing it to over $58.5 million domestic and over $107.8 million worldwide in just two weeks.  It is already the fifth highest-grossing Focus Features release of all time.

Hustlers actually jumped up over the weekend from fifth place last week back to third this week.  The movie made another $11.5 million and has made over $80.6 million domestic and over $95.4 million worldwide.

IT: Chapter Two and Ad Astra rounded out the top 5, with the latter dropping 46.6% from last week’s opening with $10.1 million for this weekend.  Rambo: Last Blood dropped 54.6% from last weekend’s opening and took sixth place with another $8.6 million.

In only 461 theaters, Judy took seventh place with $3 million.  It’s a Judy Garland biopic starring Renee Zellweger that is garnering some major Best Actress buzz for Oscar season.

Despite Judy’s incredible limited performance, it was beaten in the Per Theater average by First Love, the latest from Takashi Miike, that made $12,070 in both of the two theaters it played in.