If you’d asked me how the box office was going to shake out this past weekend, I would have said that The Fate of the Furious takes the number one slot for the third week in a row. Predictably, it did, pulling in nearly $20 million and officially crossing the $1 billion benchmark.
What I would not have foreseen, however, is How to be a Latin Lover taking the number two slot with just over $12 million. It looked entertaining but lacked the star power that commercially successful raunchy comedies typically have. It’s marketing was also largely relegated to the online sphere and there was not a lot of chatter behind it. Not to mention the film was playing on a fraction of the number of screens nationwide as its Hollywood competitors. Despite those odds, it averaged almost $11 thousand per screen this weekend to lock down second place in the U.S.
The third slot, however, is where I would have been very, very off. I would have guessed The Boss Baby or Beauty and the Beast lands here. In actuality, it was Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. That’s right. The sequel to 2015 Indian film Baahubali: The Beginning took the third spot at the domestic box office. It played on even less screens than How to be a Latin Lover, only 425 in the country. That’s an average of $24,364 per screen, the most of any film out right now. Amazing!
The Boss Baby continues its top five streak with the fourth slot, pulling in nearly $10 million in its fifth weekend. The animated family flick is nearing the $400 million line worldwide.
The star-studded psychological thriller The Circle had a disappointing debut to round out the top five. It opened to just $9.6 million on an $18 million budget.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will look to dethrone ‘Fate’ when it opens this weekend.
What do you all think of the top five this weekend? Are you as shocked as we are? Let us know in the comments below!
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