Sully sees Hanks star as Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot hailed as a hero after saving the lives of 155 passengers and crew when his plane’s engines failed over the Hudson river. “It proves that going to the movies is not just a youth-driven habit”. Paul Dergarabedian, comScore senior media analyst, told the Associated Press that the success “Sully” had in drawing older moviegoers shows that that audience may have been ready for something different from this summer’s tentpoles. Dergarabedian said that for stars that number is normally in the single digits.
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At number 5 Chinese film The Age Of Shadows makes its debut with $16 million, very good consider the single territory it is released in.Also new at number 7 this week is When The Bow Breaks which grosses $15 million from its USA release. “Sully” cost Warner Bros. and financing partners like Village Roadshow about $60 million to make before promotion costs. The 375 IMAX screens accounted for about $4 million of the total this weekend.
With only $10 million to cover, When the Bough Breaks, the thriller of a husband, a wife, and an unstable surrogate mother, did well on its own terms with an estimated $15 million. “This is a movie that really couldn’t get a leg up on any front”, Dergarabedian says.
Sully, the kind of adult-oriented, mid-budget drama that is not supposed to succeed in theatres anymore, at least if you listen to franchise-obsessed studio executives, soared at the box office over the weekend.
Warners’ Suicide Squad placed No. 4 in its sixth weekend with $5.7 million for a North American cume of $307.4 million.
The Wild Life, a Belgium-France animated film, rounded out the Top 5 with a muted $3.3-M opening.
Final figures are expected Monday.
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Meanwhile another, more positively reviewed, Sony film Don’t Breathe secured the third spot on the chart after making $8.2 million. Though faring better in pure numbers, Kubo and the Two Strings and its $3.2 million is still struggling, and looking to be a financial bomb, though not a critical one. Finally, though sliding five places to tenth, Sausage Party is still a big victor, with an estimated $2.3 million adding to $93.2 million in domestic earnings.
