“Wonder Woman” and “All Eyez on Me” Skyrocket, “Rough Night” Stumbles in the Harsh Daylight

	Film	Weekend	Opening Weekend	Current Gross
	Cars 3	$53.6m	$53.6m	$53.6m
	Wonder Woman	$41.2m	$103.2m	$275m
	All Eyez on Me	$26.4m	$26.4m	$26.4m
	The Mummy	$14.5m	$31.6m	$57.1m
	47 Meters Down	$11.2m	$11.2m	$11.2m

A not insignificant sized wrench was thrown into the box office this weekend, with several movies performing far better than they were expected to and some performing… less so.

Cars 3, despite leading the weekend, is perhaps the least exciting story here. It opened a little less than our predictions had it at, making it the smallest opening of the overall Cars franchise, but still well enough that it should go on to make big money (as most Pixar films are wont to do). It’s the thirteenth-highest opening for a Pixar film and with its foreign intake, currently sits at $74.9 million worldwide. For comparison, Cars made $244 million domestically and $462 million worldwide, while the second installment earned $191 million domestically and $562 million worldwide. Most animated films tend to have long legs, continuing to make more over a longer period of time, while other flicks like blockbusters tend to drop off rather quickly. Combined, the Cars franchise has made nearly $1.1 billion worldwide and going forward, we will now be watching that number to see how high it climbs.

For the third weekend in a row, Wonder Woman over-performed expectations. It dropped only 29.5 percent for a current domestic total of $275 million, now less than $20 million away from overtaking Man of Steel (which it could very well do after only one more weekend, but most assuredly after two at the very least) and $50 million away from surpassing Suicide Squad. Globally, it’s at $572 million, less than $100 million away from rushing past Man of Steel.  The film continues to do much better than most predicted only a couple months ago, although perhaps not as surprising to the fans who continue to go see the film and praise it (it’s also still the most tweeted about film of the year, as people keep praising it, with the word-of-mouth helping its very successful run). It’s thrilling to see Wonder Woman perform as well as it has, considering it’s the first female-led superhero film of the current wave and that it’s directed by a woman. Should it go on to be one of the more successful films in the DC Extended Universe, it will be a great victory for both the film and its fans.

Summit Entertainment

Continuing the trend of outperforming predictions are the next three films, starting with the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me. Despite terrible reviews (the film is currently at 22 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and multiple people coming out against the film, including Jada Pinkett-Smith, who’s depicted in the film, the movie opened several million higher than expected. To be more precise, the film opened to $26.4 million, when projections had it opened in the low twenties. Clearly, there was a bigger audience for the film than anticipated, but the big question mark now is how long the audience will stick around. If fans are as unhappy with the film as critics have been, the film could see an extremely steep drop next weekend and come to an abrupt halt, despite its strong opening.

The Mummy also churned out a second-week performance that was $2 million more than our own prediction. Still, it was a 54 percent drop and given the film needs to clear at least $500 million worldwide to do decent business and get Universal’s Dark Universe off to a decent start. Right now, that is still a reality that’s completely up in the air and difficult to say how possible it is. Domestically, the film has only made $57 million, making it a surefire flop Stateside. It’s performed far better oveseas, where most of its $293 million global total has come from — $236 million specifically. Yet even if the film is able to make $500 million, on the flip side of something like Wonder Woman, the word-of-mouth surrounding The Mummy has been nothing but poor, with the film being described as a “misstep,” a “failed launch,” and “the most important bad movie of the year,” the last one according to NPR. So regardless of numbers, its reputation is undoubtedly tarnished beyond repair.

Finally, the fifth spot of the weekend’s box office turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of all, for more than one reason. The movie in question that landed in the spot was the shark thriller 47 Meters Down co-starring Mandy Moore and Claire Holt. Where this film wasn’t even expected to make it to $10 million, in fact it opened to $11.2 million. Despite its absurd premise (two sisters becoming stranded at the bottom of the ocean after their cage breaks off from the boat, surrounded by hungry Great White Sharks) and poor reviews, it seems a dumb, fun thriller is what audiences were looking for as summer starts to set in. It performed less than last year’s The Shallows, which opened to $16.8 million and went on to make $55 million total, but overperforming is nothing but a good thing for 47 Meters Down. Even if it doesn’t make more than $50 million, it’s still a success story for Entertainment Studios.

But 47 Meters Down landing in the final spot of the top five meant the other new wide release of the weekend, Rought Night, didn’t make it. In fact, it not only didn’t make it, it bombed — hard. Where the film was expected to open in the mid-to-high teens, it instead opened with a whopping $8 million, coming in below Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales‘ fourth week. With a budget of $20 million, this perhaps doesn’t mean inevitable disaster for Sony, but it’s certainly not a promising start.

(Source: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed.)

Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor