Warner Bros. superhero tentpole Wonder Woman held on to the top spot at the box office while Universal’s Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy reboot failed to unwrap big gains domestically as Hollywood’s bleak summer continued this weekend.
Wonder Woman — starring Gal Gadot as the Amazonian princess-turned World War I peacekeeper — raked in $16 million Friday for an estimated $57.2 million weekend total in its second week of release, according to Box Office Mojo. The well-reviewed Patty Jenkins-directed film, with a 93 percent “fresh” rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, fell just 45 percent in its second weekend for a ten-day domestic total of $205 million. The film has fared even better overseas, with its international tally standing at $435 million.
Wonder Woman‘s success — (the 45 percent second-weekend drop is the one of the lowest ever for a superhero movie) —provides a much-needed shot in the arm to DC’s inter-connected universe of superhero movies as Warners preps the launch of Justice League later this year.
Meanwhile, Universal’s monster movie The Mummy debuted to a paltry estimated $32.2 million three-day frame to come in second place for the weekend. The Tom Cruise-starring film, meant to launch Universal’s “Dark Universe” of inter-connected monster movies, reportedly cost $125 million to produce before marketing, meaning the film will have to perform exceptionally well overseas to turn a profit for the studio. For comparison, each of the three Brendan Fraser-led Mummy films in the early 2000s opened higher than this latest iteration.
Mummy did fare far better overseas, where Cruise’s name still carries a ton of star firepower. The film opened to an estimated $52.2 million in China, a record for a Cruise-led film in the country, on its way to an international total of $141.8 million, the best international launch for any film in the actor’s career.
Universal undoubtedly hoped for a better opening for Mummy, as it was meant to serve as the first film in its “Dark Universe” series. Upcoming entries in the series are reported to include a Bill Condon-directed Bride of Frankenstein movie in 2019, and the Johnny Depp-starring The Invisible Man.
Dreamworks Animation’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie came in third place with an estimated $12.3 million haul. The animated movie featuring the voices of Kevin Hart and Ed Helms has earned $44.5 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, a solid if unremarkable result for a film that reportedly cost just $30 million to produce.
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales continued its underwhelming run at the box office with a third-weekend estimated take of $10.7 million and a fourth-place finish, bringing its domestic total to around $135 million. Johnny Depp’s fifth outing as the buoyant Captain Jack Sparrow has delivered overseas, however, with an estimated global tally of close to $600 million.
Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 rounded out this weekend’s top five with an estimated $6.2 million in domestic receipts. The James Gunn-directed superhero ensemble kicked off the summer season in early May with a $145 million debut weekend, and until Wonder Woman, was this summer’s only real box office hit. The film’s global haul stands at $828 million.
Overall, the summer to date has been a disaster for studios, with only Wonder Woman and Guardians breaking out as bona fide hits. The season has suffered with a string of big-budget bombs, including Mummy, the aforementioned Pirates sequel, the Ridley Scott-directed sequel Alien: Covenant and Warner Bros.’ Charlie Hunnam-Jude Law-starrer King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Other lower-budgeted misfires included Paramount’s Baywatch reboot and the Amy Schumer-Goldie Hawn kidnap caper Snatched.
According to Bloomberg, theater companies AMC and IMAX have seen their stock fall precipitously this year due in part to poor box office results. Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz told the outlet that this summer’s offerings to date have collectively fallen $300 million short of expectations, and summer 2017 could beat out the summer of 2014 to become the worst summer at the box office since at least the mid-1970s.
Industry observers will be holding out hope for other scheduled high-profile releases this summer, including next weekend’s Pixar animated sequel Cars 3, Michael Bay and Universal’s Transformers: The Last Knight, and Warner Bros’ Christopher Nolan-helmed World War II epic Dunkirk. Other closely-watched movies will include Universal’s Despicable Me 3, Sony/Columbia Pictures’ Spider-Man: Homecoming and Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes.
View this weekend’s full box office results at Box Office Mojo.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.