The film is one of two big summer releases for Paramount, which has struggled at the box office.
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The only new release to crawl its way into the top 3 this week is “War Dogs”, bringing in an estimated million. The movie, which cost around $100 million to produce, collected just $11.4 million across the US and Canada during its opening weekend.
Although Laika’s stop-motion animated films have only gotten better with each round, their domestic opening weekend totals continue to dip with each release.
The well-reviewed Kubo and the Two Strings garnered an A CinemaScore, placed #4 with an $12.6-M debut from 3,260 theaters.
The D.C. comic movie, which as come in for heavy criticism from critics, grossed a further $20.7 million to hold off the animated film and stay in the number one spot. Until then, take a look at the top 10 estimates for the weekend of August 19. Overseas, the epic rolled out in about 33% of the marketplace, grossing $10.7-M for a global box office open of $22-M.
Though the director of the new “Ben-Hur”, Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted”, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”), put a thrilling chariot race in his movie, along with a few other above-average action sequences, it’s nowhere close to delivering on the dramatics or story strength of the Heston version (even with Bekmambetov’s having a scene in which Jesus is crucified). Box Office Mojo reports that Warner Bros.’ Task Force X adaptation has now made $262.2 million domestically, the eighth-highest total this year, and $572.6 million worldwide, the 11th highest tally.
Suicide Squad easily won the box office for the third week in a row, but all attention was focused on the extreme derailing of Ben-Hur.
The film picked up a $20.7 million (GBP15.9 million) weekend haul to take its three-week tally to $262.3 million (GBP200.6 million).
It’s official – the latest version of “Ben-Hur” is a bust. Falling just behind Suicide Squad was Sausage Party, which earned $15.3 million for a second-place finish in its second weekend.
Three previous?Ben-Hur? films, the earliest which dates back to 1907, have made history for different reasons.
Jonah Hill and Miles Teller’s arms dealing drama ‘War Dogs’ opened in third place. The movie, billed as a modern-day Western, is scoring in both arthouses and in theaters across Texas, the Southwest and South. Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges and Ben Foster star. The historical biographical film, in which Ms. Portman also stars, debuted to $36,000 from two theaters in NY and Los Angeles for an average of $18,000.
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Compared to projections, War Dogs came in above Gitesh’s $9M projection while Kubo and the Two Strings and Ben-Hur came in below his $16M and $10M respective forecasts.
