Weekend Box Office Report: Madea Takes Down Tom Cruise
Don’t let that headline mislead you too much. Tom Cruise is fine. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back also did fine in its opening weekend. But there’s something inherently amusing about one the most recognizable movie stars in the world playing second fiddle to Tyler Perry and his ever-popular creation, Madea. The seasonally appropriate Boo! A Madea Halloween edged out Cruise’s latest sequel at the box office this weekend, contributing to a top 10 where moderately budgeted movies reigned supreme.
Film | Weekend | Per Screen | ||
1 | Boo! A Madea Halloween | $27,600,000 | $12,212 | $27,600,000 |
2 | Jack Reacher: Never Go Back | $23,000,000 | $6,085 | $23,000,000 |
3 | Ouija: Origin of Evil | $14,060,000 | $4,438 | $46,558,000 |
4 | The Accountant | $14,025,000 (-43.2) | $4,209 | $47,920,000 |
5 | The Girl on the Train | $7,270,000 (-40.6) | $2,352 | $58,902,000 |
6 | Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children | $6,000,000 (-33.0) | $1,915 | $74,431,000 |
7 | Keeping Up With the Joneses | $5,600,000 | $1,853 | $5,600,000 |
8 | Kevin Hart: What Now? | $4,110,000 (-65.1) | $1,602 | $18,941,000 |
9 | Storks | $4,085,000 (-28.1) | $1,904 | $64,714,000 |
10 | Deepwater Horizon | $3,625,000 (-43.4) | $1,282 | $55,270,000 |
The Madea movies have opened as high as $41 million and as low as $16 million, so the $27 million opening for Boo! A Madea Halloween places it right in the middle of the pack. That’s a very strong start for a movie that is reportedly budgeted at only $20 million ; it’s already well on its way to being profitable and, when all is said and done, will probably see a greater financial return than most 2016 releases. Even if it plummets next weekend — and since there’s still one more weekend until Halloween, it probably won’t — it’s already doing fine.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back opened with a decent $23 million, a number that doesn’t reflect Tom Cruise’s movie star status but still feels pretty good for a $60 million movie. The first Jack Reacher opened to $15 million but grew strong legs, hanging out in theaters until it made $80 million at the domestic box office. The sequel, while not as well-reviewed, could have a similar trajectory, especially since the older crowds who would be drawn to another Jack Reacher movie don’t always arrive in the opening weekend.
In third place, Ouija: Origin of Evil opened with $14 million, a number that is far from remarkable but is pretty, pretty good for a horror movie budgeted at $9 million. Even though the first movie opened to $19 million and even though horror movies tend to plummet in their second weekends, this one may surprise us. After all, Halloween is on a Monday this year and audiences may be waiting until next weekend to get their horror movie fix.
The weekend’s final new release, the comedy Keeping Up With the Joneses, limped into the top 10 in seventh place, grossing only $5 million. This is the second Zach Galifianakis comedy in a row to open to such dismal numbers, which suggests that his days as a Hollywood leading man are numbered. And that’s probably for the best, as he always did his best work when he was operating on the fringes of comedy.
In fourth and fifth place, The Accountant and The Girl on the Train continued to hold strong, grossing $14 million and $7 million. The former currently stands at $47 million and the latter at $58 million. Neither of them will hit $100 million, but they’ll still be more profitable at the end of the day than most of the summer blockbusters that bombed a few months ago. There is a lesson to be learned here, if studios will only take note of what Boo! A Madea Halloween, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, The Accountant, and The Girl on the Train have in common: modest budgets that aim for audiences that aren’t always interested in the latest superhero movie.