3rd update Friday PM after 2nd midday post: The only film that moviegoers care about this weekend is Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout which is landing the top spot with a great second weekend of $34.3M, anda super hold of -44% (besting Rogue Nation‘s -49%) closing in on a 10-day stateside cume of $123.6M.

 

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Most of the new competition looks to be missing its tracking marks, a result one rival distrib boss called “The dog days of August.” The truth is we’re not seeing a DC or Marvel title here on the calendar, or some other big four-quad movie because Fallout has secured all the Imax screens, and no studio will brave this month of back-to-school without ’em. September can’t get here fast enough as the business waits for New Line/Warner Bros’. Conjuring title The Nun to take us into the fall on Sept. 7.

 

 

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Disney

In all fairness to Disney, they were seeing Christopher Robin in the $20M range, while most tracking services had the pic in the low-to-mid $30Ms. With an estimated $24.9M for the weekend and a solid A CinemaScore to counter that squishy 67% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, Disney probably is content with the results of this live action feature extension of their $6 billion Winnie-the-Pooh universe, and not just because it’s exceeding the opening of its previous August animated feature-turned-live actioner, Pete’s Dragon ($21.5M, A CinemaScore, and 3.5X multiple of $76.2M). One rival studio executive snarked that the slowdown in the pic’s opening stemmed from the studio positioning the film more toward adults than hand-holders. However, we’ll see how much this spikes tomorrow from matinees. What’s clear is that, small children aside, the opening for Christopher Robin will outstrip the entire global cume of the last animated take on the bear-stuffed-with-fluff seven years ago, Winnie the Pooh, which only made $33.1M. So, right there, it shows that there was mainstream interest here for Disney’s Hook-take on Pooh.

Social Media observer RelishMix noticed that the oline response to Christopher Robin had”fans of Pooh dabbing their eyes and putting hands on their hearts just watching the trailers.  The film seems to have touched a nerve with sentimental moviegoers, who yearn for the days of their childhood.  They want to share these feelings with their own kids and grandparents – or, some insist they’ll see the film alone if they must.  Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell get a notable portion of discussion, as do specific characters like Pooh, Eeyore and all the pals in the Wood.” RelishMix says that the 240.8M social media universe across all platforms is strong and exceeds the average reach for a live action family film which is 189M. Average daily YouTube views for the top clips are 33,7K, which is also ahead of the standard 27,6K views. The movie’s official Facebook page is earning about 800 new fans daily, but that doesn’t count all the new fans for Pooh, Piglet and the other individual character pages that Disney has curated.  “If Christopher Robin has an Achilles heel, it’s that it’s viral rate (EOR) is currently at a rate of 22:1, which is behind the usual 38:1 for a family film,” says RelishMix.

 

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Lionsgate

Moviegoers aren’t falling in love with the all-femme R-rated action pic The Spy Who Dumped Me which is estimated to take 3rd place with $12.1M. Unfortunately, the sublime comedic brilliance of Saturday Night Live‘s Kate McKinnon and the solid straight-woman shenanigans of Mila Kunis cannot make up for a movie that many audiences feel they’ve already seen, and we’re talking Paul Feig’s hysterical undercover send up from three summers ago, Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy. That was a loud, sassy, fun-filled deconstruction of the James Bond genre that stood heads and tales above the parody attitudes of Austin Powers. At a time when comedies are largely flailing at the box office we can’t afford to move the genre needle forward both critically and commercially with a retread. It’s the concept, not the stars, that’s the biggest hurdle here. Kudos to McKinnon and Kunis to working it as they’ve been out there hysterically promoting the film together with a Marie Claire video “How Well Do You Know Your Co-Star” game and a joint appearance on Ellen. RelishMix gives them thumbs up for stoking the fan engagement, as well as their funny, frantic” banter which is earning views. But social chatter was mixed on this femme 007 send-up, and seriously hurting The Spy Who Dumped Me are the critics who are dumping on it about being uneven (it’s suffering from a RT of 37% Rotten). Audiences gave it a B CinemaScore tonight which is less than B+s earned by Spy and this summer’s Ocean’s 8.  “The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy,” says the Globe and Mail critic Kate Taylor.

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Lionsgate

Another casualty of ‘been there-done that’ is Fox’s YA feature adaptation The Darkest Minds which despite being a popular YA novel by author Alexandra Bracken is being criticized for being derivative of younger sci-fi before it. RelishMix spotted the rioters on social who said that “Darkest Minds looks like a rehash of The Hunger Games and other recent YA fare, with some even likening the materials to the recent New Mutants and other X-Men offshoots.  This contingent’s sentiment essentially asks, ‘What’s fresh about this adaptation?’  And, there’s certainly a notable portion of the novels’ fan base asking, ‘Why was this creative choice made?’ whether it’s related to casting, the color of a certain character or scenes alluded to in the trailers that definitely are not in the book.” Hence the awful $6.4M 7th place opening for this production which carries an estimated $34M. Because of the genre, Fox couldn’t keep it cheap like they did with their July 2015 YA adaptation of John Green’s Paper Towns, which at a production cost of $12M, and a global haul of $85.5M, turned a solid $14M profit for Fox.

Dinesh D’Souza’s Death of a Nation is looking at $2M at 1,005 screens outside the top 10. Next to the filmmakers other titles and their wide breaks, this piece of Trump propaganda is at the low-end. Six years ago 2016’s Obama America made $6.5M at 1,091 locations in week 7 after being platformed. Hillary’s America two summers ago earned close to $4M at 1,217 in its second weekend after a three-theater first weekend and 2014’s America bowed to $2.7M at 1,105 venues after a three-theater first weekend as well. In regards to their domestic B.O. rank, it’s Obama ($33.4M), America ($14.4M) and Hillary ($13M)

Nonetheless, despite the ho-hum of this weekend’s openers, it might just wind up to be a better FSS than a year ago when Sony/Media Rights Capital’s The Dark Tower led all films with $19.1M with all titles grossing $122.7M over three days.

Below the weekend’s B.O. based off industry estimates:

 

thumb rank film dis. screens (chg) fri 3-day (-%) total wk
mission-impossible-fallout.jpg?resize=50 1 M:I – Fallout Par/Sky 4,395 (+9) $9.8M (-57%) $34.3M (-44%)  $123.6M 2
christopher-robin.jpg?resize=500%2C281&w 2 Christopher Robin Dis 3,602 $9.1M $24.9M $24.9M 1
the-spy-who-dumped-me.jpg?resize=500%2C2 3 The Spy Who Dumped Me LG 3,111 $4.7M $12.1M $12.1M 1
mamma-mia-2.jpg?resize=500%2C281&w=605 4 Mamma Mia 2 Uni 3,359 (-155) $2.8M (-40%) $8.9M (-41%) $91.1M 3
hotel-3-e1531662129118.jpg?resize=500%2C 5 hotel Transylvania 3 Sony 3,162 (-843) $2.5M (-32%) $8.5M (-30%) $136.7M 4
equalizer-2-ii.jpg?resize=500%2C281&w=60 6 Equalizer 2 Sony 2,725 (-663) $2.3M (-41%) $8.2M (-41%) $79.2M 3
the-darkest-minds.jpg?resize=500%2C281&w 7 The Darkest Minds Fox 3,127 $2.5M $6.4M $6.4M 1
image.jpeg?resize=500%2C281&w=605 8 Ant-man and the Wasp Dis 2,233 (-780) $1.75M (-30%) $6.1M (-30%) $195.3M 5
incredibles-iii.jpg?resize=500%2C281&w=6 9 incredibles 2 Dis 1,802 (-814) $1.5M (-28%) $5.2M (-28%)  $583.3M 8
teen-titans-go-to-the-movie-2.jpg?resize 10 Teen Titans Go! WB 3,188 $1.5M (-64%) $5.1M (-51%) $21M 2