“Jason Bourne”, which returned Matt Damon to the title role after he sat out “The Bourne Legacy” in 2012, found more favor with audiences than critics.
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New horror film Lights Out landed in fifth place in its second weekend with $10.81M for a new total of $42.87M off of a $4.9M budget. The gross marks the second-best opening for a “Bourne” franchise film; only 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” ($69.3 million) had a hotter start.
With a nine-year gap between films, Universal kept awareness high in the lead-up to the release with airings of the Matt Damon “Bourne” trilogy on eight of NBCUniversal’s networks. Clearly, STX Entertainment is going to have their biggest opening weekend ever, and they can credit the fact that they served a demographic hungry for new movies.
“In the opinion of Universal’s distribution chief, Nick Carpou, “It’s no secret that people were anticipating a reunion of [Damon and Greengrass]”. Exit polls showed the audience split 55% to 45% male-female, with 60% 35 and older.
The original R-rated comedy “Bad Moms”, from the writers of “The Hangover”, also had reason to crack open the champagne this weekend.
The raunchy comedy Bad Moms, about 3overstressed and overstretched mothers with dreams of escape, came in third in its opening weekend, taking in $23.8 million. Audiences liked it too, giving it an A- on Cinemascore.
But how did the rest of the Top 10 do at the weekend box office? The adventure film has earned $309.1 million worldwide, but its $180 million price tag and millions more spent in marketing the jungle tale, means that it still has a lot of distance to cover before it can swing a profit.
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Last among the newcomers is Nerve, a thriller starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, which earned $15 million over the course of its five-day debut. That’s a good number for a film that cost only a reported $20 million to make. I’m predicting the film at least gets to around $150 million domestically which could be seen as a disappointment, especially since a fourth film has already been announced as noted by Box Office Mojo.
