One of the more anticipated films of August arrived this weekend with Crazy Rich Asians from Warner Bros. The film is one that has had a lot riding on it, rightly or wrongly, with the director talking previously about how if it doesn’t do well it’ll reinforce to some people that Asian actors can’t launch a movie. Foolishness about in Hollywood as we’ve seen when it comes to female superheroes so this is plainly no surprise.
That said, the film had a strong opening weekend with a $34 million take since opening on Wednesday, netting $25 million this weekend with a good push. With a $30 million budget, the film should do well overall in North America and it’s looking like its tracking will have it close or surprassing $100 million when all is said and done, especially if word of mouth continues well. The film had an almost negligible overseas opening this weekend with just six markts for $730,000…. This isn’t a surprise as it’s going to get a staggered release with the cast and creative able to get out and promote it heavily.
With an expected drop from its debut weekend, Warner Bros. also scored with The Meg as it added another $21 million to bring it up to $84 million including all the weekday showings. It’s also doing well overseas as it added another $67 million tihs weekend to bring it to $230 million or $315 million worldwide.
The other new films of the weekend with Alpha and Mile 22 both did decent when you get down to it but aren’t expected to have much in the way of legs. Mile 22 hit $13.6 million but has lackluster reviews and was heavily male and older, which is likely going to nix franchise plans unless their VOD.
Alpha did $10 million and was on projections and with a $50 million budget it’s really going to have to work the overseas side of things. It fared a bit better in terms of reviews at least.
Next weekend sees the debut of The Happytime Murders going wide at 3,000 screens while AXL hits 1,600 screens. We also get a Wednesday debut for Operation Finale in wide release.
