StarJason Stathammay have wanteda gorier, R-rated shark attack movie, butThe Meg’s decision to open as wide as possible is paying off at the box office. DirectorJon Turteltaub’s tale of a prehistoric monster running amok opened to $16.5 million on Friday night—better than expected—and is swimming its way toward a $40 million opening weekend,doublethe number that most trackers estimated. Warner Bros., which paid at least $150 million to produce the film, may have found a franchise. (Please have Jason Statham fight a different dinosaur every summer, is what I’m saying.)
That monstrous number easily de-thronedMission: Impossible - Fallout,which came away with $5.3 million in its third Friday in theaters. We can now say for almost absolute certainty that the next installment in theMission: Impossiblefranchise will featureTom Cruisecreating an actual, real-life Megalodon and then punching it in the face.
Spike Lee’s latest, the highly buzzed aboutBlacKkKlansman,opened nationwide to $3.6 million, good enough for a fifth-place finish Friday night beneath Disney’s so-so earningChristopher Robin. That’s a genuinely solid number for Lee’s story—expected to finish out the weekend somewhere between $9 million and $10 million—about a black detective (John David Washington) infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan; it’s worth noting thatBlacKkKlansmansports an A- CinemaScore compared toThe Meg’s B+.
Another big surprise is the low-budget horror film from Sony’s Screen Gems,Slender Man, which scared up a third place Friday finish with $4.85 million. I mostly say surprise because a movie about the Slender Man debuted in theaters and yet it is not somehow 2012. The film, directed bySylvain White, sports a truly terrifying D- CinemaScore.
Check out Friday’s Top 5 below and check back tomorrow for full weekend estimates.
$16,500,000
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
$5,300,000
$147,267,284
Slender Man
$4,850,000
Disney’s Christopher Robin
$3,615,000
$41,204,317
BlacKkKlansman
$3,600,000
