The summer box office is moving right along and there was certainly a lot of anticipation and marketing/promotion out there for the box office winner this weekend with Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The film landed just over $49 million for its three-day debut which was short of expectations of upwards of $55 million. It had a big Friday but fell off after that and it came in close to half of what the 2014 film did at $93 million. The film did get a B+ CinemaScore and skewed heavily male and older. Expectations are that it’ll cross the $100 million mark domestic by the time everything is said and done. The film, with its X budget, is going to need the overseas market and that was a given from the start. It opened in 75 markets this weekend where it did $130 million, bringing it to a $179 million worldwide debut. China took a big chunk of that with about $70 million.
Also debuting this week was Rocketman where it did $25 million, putting it about $7 million ahead of the more conservative estimates. The film was more split when it comes to age and gender but it nailed an A- CinemaScore and should get some decent word of mouth. It debuted overseas previously so this is its second weekend but it comes with an expansion, bringing in $19.2 million.
The other new film this weekend was Universal bringing out the low-budget Ma, which was made for $5 million. It got a B- CinemaScore and drew in $18 million domestic and another $21 million overseas.
Aladdin slipped to second place in its second weekend with a 53% drop and brought in another $42 million. On top of weekday showings it’s now at $185 million domestic. It also did another $78 million overseas, where it’s at $261 million there total or $445 million worldwide.
Next weekend sees two big films and several smaller launches. Fox is set to end its X-Men run with Dark Phoenix in 3,500 screens while Universal goes for the kids with The Secret Life of Pets 2 in 4,400 screens. Well go USA is bringing out Chasing the Dragon 2 and The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil. Abramorama has the Ghost Fleet documentary while Neon has their new doc with This One’s for the Ladies. A24 launches The Last Black Man in San Francisco while Amazon has Late Night and Blue Fox releases Papi Chulo.
