With just $11 million for a fifth place debut, the action packed tanker first took a beating at the hands of critics and now from audiences. Such a performance is an unequivocal poor result for a movie that cost about $100 million to make (after rebates).
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Paramount has had a bad summer at the box office with other movies such as “Star Trek Beyond”, “Florence Foster Jenkins” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows” also falling short. And it’s despite attempts to woo religious audiences, notes the Wall Street Journal.
Jack Huston takes on the role of Ben-Hur in the film, a retelling of the 1959 classic starring Charlton Heston as a Jewish prince-turned-vengeful slave.
The movie was produced by Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey, who told Breitbart.com she has high hopes for the film.
The story revolves around Ben-Hur, who is made to serve as a slave on a Roman galley. The film will be lucky to top out at $30 million when it finishes its stateside run, and will nearly certainly shed screens next weekend as theaters try to move more popular films onto that real estate.
MGM, the company behind the original “Ben-Hur” movies, put up the majority of the production costs for the new film. Stay tuned to find out!
Warner Bros.’ “War Dogs” took the third spot with an estimated 14.3 million dollars, leading the weekend’s newcomers.
Pete’s Dragon slipped out of the top five this week as it dropped three places to this week’s number six.
The animated flick “Kubo and the Two Strings” debuted in fourth place with $12.6 million and rounding out the top give was the reinterpretation of a classic, “Ben-Hur” with a very disappointing $11.4 million. “Suicide Squad” broke the record with $133.7 million debut.
Instead, Suicide Squad once again crushed the competition, holding on to the No. 1 spot with $20.7 million.
This file image released by Warner Bros. pictures, from left, Jay Hernandez as Diablo, Jai Courtney as Boomerang, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag and Karen Fukuhara as Katana in a scene from “Suicide Squad”. Focus Features’ A Tale of Love and Darkness earned $36,000 from just two theaters for an impressive $18,000 per-screen average, while Cohen Media Group’s The People Vs. Fritz Bauer earned $33,781 from six theaters for a solid $5,630 per-screen average.
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Looking ahead to next weekend, three more movies will bring the summer movie season to a close.
