Asians still making Crazy cash

Tom Cruise stars as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible — Fallout. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $9.3 million.
Tom Cruise stars as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible — Fallout. It came in third at last weekend’s box office and made about $9.3 million.

Crazy Rich Asians keeps getting richer, topping the North American box office for a third week in a row and taking in more than double the 4-day weekend earnings of the second-highest-grossing film.

Continuing to signal the market's desire for more diverse voices in big-budget movies, Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros.), led by Asian stars, sold about $28.6 million in tickets from Friday to Monday. The sales are the latest demonstration of the film's staying power, representing a decrease in earnings of only around 10 percent from the previous weekend and perhaps reaffirming Warner's plans to move forward with a sequel.

Crazy Rich Asians, adapted from a 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan, has now swept up more than $117 million in North America, according to comScore, which compiles box-office data.

Also for the third weekend in a row, The Meg (Warner Bros.) came in second. The blockbuster-by-design aquatic thriller with Jason Statham and a giant shark-thing sold about $13.8 million in tickets, bringing its domestic total up to about $124 million. While the film exceeded box-office expectations during its opening weekend, it has since consistently trailed Crazy Rich Asians -- though not quite enough to lose its lead of about $10 million in cumulative North American earnings.

Mission: Impossible -- Fallout (Paramount) came in third, with an estimated gross of $9.3 million during its sixth weekend at the box office, bringing its domestic total to about $207 million.

The only newcomer in the top five was the historical drama Operation Finale (Metro Goldwyn Mayer), which brought in about $9.6 million domestically over the long weekend. Directed by Chris Weitz, the film stars Ben Kingsley as the high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann and Oscar Isaac as an Israeli agent hunting Nazis a decade and a half after the end of World War II. Lukewarm reviews likely did little to bolster attendance over Labor Day weekend.

Rounding out the top five was Searching (Columbia), a horror film starring John Cho and told through footage captured from computer screens and apps, which brought in about $7.7 million during its second weekend, raising its cumulative gross to $8.1 million.

Outside the top 10 but still notable: Lionsgate's Kin, about a recently released ex-con on the run, underperformed in its opening. The film brought in about $3.9 million for the holiday weekend, a per-screen average of just $1,806, less than a quarter of Crazy Rich Asians pulled in.

Disney's Incredibles 2, the follow-up to the 2004 hit, crossed the $600 million mark in domestic sales on Sunday, making it the first animated movie and only the ninth movie of any kind to accomplish that feat. It crossed the $1 billion mark internationally in July and has brought in $1.16 billion so far.

The weekend closes out the fruitful 2018 summer movie season. Box office tracker comScore is projecting that the 2018 summer box office will net out with around $4.39 billion, up over 14 percent from last year when the summer didn't even hit $4 billion. Year to date, the box office is up 9.9 percent.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Monday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Tuesday by comScore:

  1. Crazy Rich Asians, Warner Bros., $28,576,222, 3,865 locations, $7,394 average, $117,303,610, 3 weeks.

  2. The Meg, Warner Bros., $13,816,467, 3,761 locations, $3,674 average, $123,802,883, 4 weeks.

  3. Mission: Impossible -- Fallout, Paramount, $9,315,171, 2,639 locations, $3,530 average, $206,661,700, 6 weeks.

  4. Operation Finale, MGM, $9,601,678, 1,818 locations, $4,331 average, $9,601,678, 1 week.

  5. Searching, Columbia, $7,615,035, 1,207 locations, $6,309 average, $8,123,515, 2 weeks.

  6. Christopher Robin, Disney, $7,200,627, 2,925 locations, $2,462 average, $87,609,495, 5 weeks.

  7. Alpha, Columbia, $6,041,852, 2,881 locations, $2,097 average, $28,964,072, 3 weeks.

  8. BlacKkKlansman, Focus Features, $5,649,155, 1,766 locations, $3,199 average, $39,841,980, 4 weeks.

  9. The Happytime Murders, STX Entertainment, $5,393,676, 3,256 locations, $1,657 average, $18,009,370, 2 weeks.

  10. Mile 22, STX Entertainment, $4,813,948, 2,950 locations, $1,632 average, $33,000,282, 3 weeks.

  11. Incredibles 2, Disney, $4,718,468, 2,890 locations, $1,633 average, $602,579,381, 12 weeks.

  12. Kin, Lionsgate, $3,867,703, 2,141 locations, $1,806 average, $3,867,703, 1 week.

  13. Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Columbia, $2,943,417, 1,421 locations, $2,071 average, $162,844,423, 8 weeks.

  14. Ya Veremos, Lionsgate, $2,259,362, 369 locations, $6,123 average, $2,259,362, 1 week.

  15. Slender Man, Columbia, $2,200,786, 1,534 locations, $1,435 average, $28,560,595, 4 weeks.

  16. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Universal, $1,925,330, 1,556 locations, $1,237 average, $415,210,470, 11 weeks.

  17. A.X.L., Open Road, $1,889,688, 1,710 locations, $1,105 average, $5,674,623, 2 weeks.

  18. The Equalizer 2, Columbia, $1,846,665, 1,476 locations, $1,251 average, $100,748,027, 7 weeks.

  19. Ant-Man and the Wasp, Disney, $1,817,399, 830 locations, $2,190 average, $213,977,857, 9 weeks.

  20. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Universal, $1,672,650, 1,010 locations, $1,656 average, $118,120,770, 7 weeks.

MovieStyle on 09/07/2018

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