Saturday Update: Annabelle: Creation scared up a strong $15 million opening day on Friday, including Thursday evening’s $4.0 million early show earnings. As became expected with such a strong Thursday performance, Friday proper proved more front-loaded than comparable films at this time of year. For reference, despite earning $600,000 more than The Conjuring 2‘s early shows, the spin-off’s origin/sequel came in $1.4 million behind the parent franchise sequel’s total opening day take in June last year.
Still, this is another strong result for the fourth film in the franchise as Creation looks to win the weekend with a projected $32.5 million domestically. The film’s CinemaScore registered a “B”, while Flixster audiences give it a 79 percent — between Conjuring 2‘s 89 percent and Annabelle‘s 58 percent scores. Internationally, it took in an additional $8.1 million from 39 markets on Friday, bringing the overseas total to date up to $17.7 million.
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk played backup again on Friday with another $3.13 million, down just 37 percent from last Friday. With a 22-day domestic cume of $145.44 million, the film continues to pace closely with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation as the former stands less than 3 percent behind where the latter stood at the same point in release. Strong word of mouth continues to drive the epic film as it eyes a fourth frame around $11 million.
Opening in third place for the day, The Nut Job 2 posted an underwhelming $3.01 million (including Thursday grosses). That’s notably below the $4.8 million of the first film’s originating day back in January 2014, while also giving the film a $752 per-theater average from 4,003 locations. The animated sequel will unfortunately break a record that has already been infamously set twice before during this summer: the lowest debut from any film to ever open in 4,000 or more theaters. The “record” belonged to The Emoji Movie‘s $24.5 million debut entering the weekend, and before that, was claimed by The Mummy‘s $31.7 million opening weekend in June. Nut Job 2 looks to earn around $8 million in its first weekend.
The Dark Tower and Girls Trip rounded out the top five with $2.3 million and $2.05 million yesterday, respectively. With domestic hauls of $28.7 million and $92.7 million, the films will end up around $7.4 million and $6.4 million this weekend (again, respectively).
The Glass Castle debuted with $1.65 million yesterday from 1,461 theaters, including $138,000 from Thursday shows. By comparison, last year’s Florence Foster Jenkins opened to $2.08 million from 1,528 locations on the same weekend last year. Glass Castle is projected to bring in close to $4.9 million for its opening weekend. The film received an “A-” CinemaScore.
Last but not least, Baby Driver inched closer to the $100 million domestic mark with $405,000 yesterday, giving it $99 million in all so far. It will cross the mark sometime Sunday, following Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s $300 million crossing and Wonder Woman‘s $400 million crossing as notable benchmarks to be reached in the past few days.
Key weekend projections based on studio Friday estimates are below. Official studio weekend estimates will be published on Sunday.
| # | TITLE | WEEKEND | LOCATIONS | AVG. | TOTAL | WKS. | DIST. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Annabelle: Creation | $32,500,000 | — | 3,502 | — | $9,280 | $32,500,000 | 1 | Warner Bros. / New Line |
| 2 | Dunkirk | $11,000,000 | -36% | 3,762 | -252 | $2,924 | $153,307,551 | 4 | Warner Bros. |
| 3 | The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature | $8,000,000 | — | 4,003 | — | $1,999 | $8,000,000 | 1 | Open Road |
| 4 | The Dark Tower | $7,400,000 | -61% | 3,451 | 0 | $2,144 | $33,830,764 | 2 | Sony / Columbia |
| 5 | Girls Trip | $6,400,000 | -44% | 2,303 | -279 | $2,779 | $97,073,505 | 4 | Universal |
| 6 | The Emoji Movie | $6,100,000 | -49% | 3,219 | -856 | $1,895 | $63,086,947 | 3 | Sony / Columbia |
| 7 | Spider-Man: Homecoming | $5,800,000 | -34% | 2,607 | -509 | $2,225 | $306,153,694 | 6 | Sony / Columbia |
| 8 | Kidnap | $5,100,000 | -49% | 2,418 | 40 | $2,109 | $19,269,283 | 2 | Aviron Pictures |
| 9 | The Glass Castle | $4,900,000 | — | 1,461 | — | $3,354 | $4,900,000 | 1 | LionsgateLionsgate |
| 10 | Atomic Blonde | $4,300,000 | -47% | 2,093 | -1233 | $2,054 | $42,547,225 | 3 | Focus Features |
| 11 | War for the Planet of the Apes | $3,500,000 | -43% | 2,098 | -606 | $1,668 | $137,128,493 | 5 | Fox |
| 12 | Despicable Me 3 | $3,000,000 | -45% | 2,013 | -432 | $1,490 | $247,606,445 | 7 | Universal |
| # | TITLE | WEEKEND | LOCATIONS | AVG. | TOTAL | WKS. | DIST. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Big Sick | $1,500,000 | -31% | 709 | -296 | $2,116 | $1,500,000 | 8 | Lionsgate |
| 2 | Wonder Woman | $1,400,000 | -39% | 961 | -346 | $1,457 | $402,128,085 | 11 | Warner Bros. |
| 3 | Baby Driver | $1,300,000 | -49% | 865 | -559 | $1,503 | $99,891,927 | 7 | Sony / TriStar |
| 4 | An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power | $800,000 | -17% | 556 | 376 | $1,439 | $2,295,661 | 3 | Paramount |
| 5 | Cars 3 | $310,000 | -43% | 308 | -169 | $1,006 | $148,304,196 | 9 | Disney |
| 6 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | $285,000 | -37% | 210 | -42 | $1,357 | $388,906,948 | 15 | Disney |
| 7 | 47 Meters Down | $260,000 | -10% | 173 | -238 | $1,503 | $43,477,053 | 9 | Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures |
| 8 | Step | $255,000 | 75% | 185 | 156 | $1,378 | $455,366 | 2 | Fox Searchlight |
| 9 | Transformers: The Last Knight | $235,000 | -22% | 255 | -67 | $922 | $129,786,483 | 8 | Paramount |
| 10 | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales | $120,000 | -34% | 125 | -42 | $960 | $171,573,090 | 12 | Disney |
| # | TITLE | WEEKEND | LOCATIONS | AVG. | TOTAL | WKS. | DIST. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wind River | $600,000 | 271% | 45 | 41 | $13,333 | $828,218 | 2 | The Weinstein Company |
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Friday Update: Warner Bros. reports this morning that Annabelle: Creation took in a strong $4 million from Thursday night shows. That’s a stronger start than expected for the spin-off/sequel, impressively coming in ahead of The Conjuring 2‘s $3.4 million in June 2016. Don’t Breathe, which opened last August to stellar reviews, brought in $1.88 million — although that was an original film without a pre-existing fan base — while the original Annabelle took in $2.1 million with a fall debut in 2014.
Meanwhile, The Nut Job 2 chipped away $330,000 from shows beginning at 5pm last night. That’s just over one-third the figure of Emoji Movie‘s $900,000 two weeks ago, although not terribly far behind behind Planes: Fire and Rescue‘s $450,000 back in mid-July 2014.
Thursday grosses for The Glass Castle were not available at the time of this story’s publishing. If and when they are reported, we’ll include with our next update. Official Friday estimates and key weekend projections to follow on Saturday morning.
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