Horror movies continue to shake off the competition in an overall awful summer movie season. Suspense thriller Don’t Breathe stole the U.S. box office thunder in its opening weekend, knocking off Suicide Squad from three weeks at the top, industry estimates showed yesterday.
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Don’t Breathe happily upset the studio’s modest box-office prediction of $5 million, quickly recouping its $9.9 million budget. It starred Stephen Lang, Daniel Zovatto, Jane Levy and Dylan Minnette.
Don’t Breathe is the latest horror film to strike gold during an otherwise hard summer, a crop that includes The Conjuring 2 and Lights Out. However, it was Paul Greengrass’ action film “Jason Bourne” the nº1 this weekend across the globe, grossing $56.8 million after opening to a stellar $50 million in China, earning more than any other Bourne film in that country.
No other movie was able to reach $8 million this weekend, however. The animated film has a worldwide cume of $27.6 million for its two-week run.
Fantasy films also stumbled this season. The raunchy animated flick “Sausage Party” landed in fourth place with $7.7 million to edge the flick even closer to the $100 million mark at the domestic box-office. Though only meeting analyst expectations of $6 million to $8 million, the film will prove to be a major success for the studio when factoring in projections on the home entertainment front and its United Kingdom release.
After weeks at the top, “Suicide Squad” was kicked to No. 2 by a three kids and a blind man – and rightfully so.
Each of the above-mentioned films scored a “B” Cinemascore or better based on theater exit polling, with The Conjuring 2 nabbing a rock-solid “A-” grade and everything but Lights Out garnering a “B+”. The first, “The Mechanic”, about an elite hitman, opened to $11 million when it was released by CBS Films in 2011.
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Suicide Squad has, so far, earned a whopping 5 million worldwide, though it won’t be getting any of that green from China. The second Lionsgate movie to do well over the period was crime drama Hell or High Water, released earlier this month.
