Crazy Rich Asians holds strong to win second weekend at the box office
Crazy Rich Asians is scarcely slowing down.
After a strong debut last week, Warner Bros’. glitzy rom-com is on track to earn an estimated $25 million in ticket sales at 3,526 theaters in the U.S. and Canada from Friday through Sunday, topping the box office again and boasting a remarkably strong hold. It’s down from $26.5 million last weekend, which works out to a decline of just 6 percent. (It’s not uncommon for major movies to drop off 40 percent or more.)
That brings the film’s domestic total to about $76.8 million after 12 days in theaters. Overseas, where the film is beginning to roll out, it will add about $6 million this weekend, for a worldwide total of about $83.9 million. All in all, it’s a dazzling start for a film that cost about $30 million to make, and it could mark a watershed moment for Asian representation in Hollywood.
Based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling 2013 book about a Chinese-American professor (played by Constance Wu) who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend (Henry Golding) to meet his fabulously wealthy, tradition-bound family, Crazy Rich Asians represents the first major contemporary Hollywood movie to showcase a predominantly Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club back in 1993. Jon M. Chu directed Crazy Rich Asians, and the ensemble cast includes includes Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina, and Ken Jeong.
The film has received glowing reviews from critics, and moviegoers gave it an A CinemaScore. A sequel is already in the works.
The outlook is less favorable for the weekend’s major new releases, The Happytime Murders and A.X.L. The former film, a raunchy, R-rated comedy starring Melissa McCarthy as a cop who teams up with her old puppet partner to solve a string of killings, will earn about $10 million at 3,256 theaters, putting it in third place. A.X.L., the story of a teenage boy (Alex Neustaedter) who befriends a high-tech robotic dog created by the military, will take in about $2.9 million at 1,710 theaters, good for ninth place.
The Happytime Murders, which cost about $40 million to make, marks a career-low debut for McCarthy for a movie in which she has top billing. Directed by Brian Henson (son of puppet pioneer Jim Henson) and release by STX Entertainment, the film received poor reviews from critics and a dismal C-minus CinemaScore from audiences.
Meanwhile, the poor performance of A.X.L. comes as another setback for the year-old mini studio, which is on the verge of collapse.
In limited release, Sony’s tech-themed thriller Searching, starring John Cho and Debra Messing, is arriving in nine theaters with an estimated $360,000. That works out to a strong $40,000 per-screen average.
According to ComScore, overall box office is up 9.5 percent year-to-date. Check out the Aug. 24-26 figures below.
1. Crazy Rich Asians — $25 million
2. The Meg — $13 million
3. The Happytime Murders — $10 million
4. Mission: Impossible — Fallout — $8 million
5. Christopher Robin — $6.3 million
6. Mile 22 — $6 million
7. Alpha — $5.6 million
8. BlacKkKlansman — $5.3 million
9. A.X.L. — $2.9 million
10. Slender Man — $2.8 million