Sam Raimi was back at the top of the box office over the weekend as Send Help debuted at #1.
Send Help generated $19.1 million domestically and $27.1 million worldwide. For Raimi, that’s his sixth-best opening between Oz the Great and Powerful and Drag Me to Hell. The movie got a B+ Cinemascore but both the critical and audience reaction seems strong, so we’ll have to see what kind of hold it has going into its second weekend. The Super Bowl is this coming weekend, which will take away a large share of the box office, so everything will likely see a significant drop.
In second place was Iron Lung, which generated $17.8 million. Self-financed by Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach for $3 million, the movie has already grossed more than 7x its budget worldwide, totaling $21 million. Audience reaction seems strong, but we’ll have to see how front-loaded this movie is. The film was initially scheduled to play in 60 indie theaters across the US, but fans campaigned with chains like AMC and Regal to screen it, which led to a full wide release of over 3,000 theaters. It’s a big step up from the last major film from a YouTube creator, Chris Stuckman’s Shelby Oaks, which made $2.3 million on its opening weekend last fall but also played in significantly fewer theaters.
In third place was the controversial documentary Melania, which made $7.1 million. The movie has been drawing a massive amount of scrutiny, as there were theories that conservative groups were buying tickets in bulk but not actually attending the screenings, and that the entire endeavor is essentially a bribe by Jeff Bezos to keep in Donald Trump’s good graces. The budget is highly questionable: it cost $40 million to produce, plus advertising costs that likely pushed it over $70 million, and a $7 million opening is not good for a movie with that kind of budget, even if it did outgross expectations. It appears the audience level was highly dependent on the region, with conservative states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee seeing mostly full theaters. In contrast, states like California and New York had more empty theaters. The box office for Melania was driven primarily by older, white women, who made up over 70% of the audience, and they gave the movie an A Cinemascore. The RottenTomatoes score seems to be getting hit by bots and trolls as its at 99% but many of the accounts have never reviewed any other film and many of the reviews all came in around roughly the same time.
Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash rounded out the top 5.
Outside the top 5, Shelter opened in sixth place with a disappointing $5.5 million domestically. That’s easily one of the worst wide openings ever for Jason Statham, only topping Ghosts of Mars and In the Name of the King, and definitely nowhere close to his other recent movies like The Beekeeper or A Working Man, which both opened to over $15 million. Worldwide, the film has made $13 million.
The best per-theater average went to The Moment, A24’s Charlie XCX mockumentary, which was also one of the big titles at the recent Sundance Film Festival. It earned $106,985 in each of the 4 theaters where it played. It’s expanding widely this coming weekend.
