In holdover news that isn't Avengers, Solo: A Star Wars Story earned $15.1 million (-48%) on its third weekend to bring its 17-day cume to $176.1m. It took the prior Walt Disney Star Wars movies 17-20 days before they earned less than $15.1m in a single day, let alone a Fri-Sun weekend. So, yeah, it might crawl to $200M domestic, but it probably won’t even top the unadjusted $209m domestic gross of The Empire Strikes Back from its initial (sans reissues) 1980 theatrical release. So, yeah, it'll be the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie ever.
Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom chomped the competition overseas, with a $151.1 million debut in 48 markets. That was bad news for Solo, which A) earned just $11.3m overseas this weekend and B) has earned $136.1m thus far outside of North America, or 15m less than JW2's opening week. That'll give Solo a $312m worldwide cume, meaning it might not even make it to $350m worldwide. The good news is that Han Solo can just hit up T’Challa or Elastigirl for a loan.
As the headline suggests, Solo has become one of those relatively newfangled bombs which actually earns quite a bit worldwide ($250-$350 million) but costs so much that it turns out to be a huge loser anyway. So, yes, Solo has earned more than The Lone Ranger ($260m in 2013) and John Carter ($284m in 2012) and the likes of Green Lantern, Jack the Giant Slayer and Battleship. But to see Solo pulling these kind of numbers is a little remarkable, as for the first time Star Wars has joined the ranks of ordinary men.
20th Century Fox’s Deadpool 2 earned another $13.6 million (-41%) in its fourth weekend. That’ll give Ryan Reynolds’ $110m-budgeted comedy sequel a $278m domestic cume. That means it’ll pass Meet the Fockers early next week ($279m in 2004) to become the biggest-grossing comedy sequel in adjusted domestic grosses. At this juncture, it's looking like the R-rated sequel will earn $305-$310m domestic.
It has already passed Hangover Part II ($587 million in 2011) to snag the "biggest comedy sequel ever" record in global box office. It has earned $655m worldwide as of today, becoming the fifth-biggest R-rated movie ever behind It ($700m), The Matrix Reloaded ($742m), Deadpool ($783m) and Wolf Warrior 2 ($850m). These huge overseas figures makes me think it'll be able to crawl past the $700m mark by the end, or around 7x its budget.
Last weekend’s other “big” opener, Upgrade, fell 52% for a $2.22 million and a $9.209m ten-day total. That’s halfway decent for a BH Tilt release. It might top The Darkness ($10.7m in 2016) to become BH Tilt’s biggest grosser as well as being the microbudget/targeted release label’s first $11m+ domestic grosser. In grimmer news, Paramount’s Action Point earned $883k (-63%) in weekend two for a $4.448m ten-day cume.
In better Paramount news, A) Mission: Impossible Fallout still looks like the greatest movie since Schindler's List and B) A Quiet Place has earned $324 million worldwide, passing the global totals of all four respective Conjuring movies. Your move, The Nun. And we'll see if Universal can swallow their pride and sell Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes' The First Purge as "from the makers of Get Out and A Quiet Place." Maybe Platinum Dunes, Blumhouse and Creepy Puppet can all team up for an ensemble fright flick where the various horror icons team up to keep a kid off drugs.
