Weekend Box Office: ‘Jumanji’ Is King of the Box Office Jungle
Would you like to play a game? Moviegoers definitely want to. In its third weekend in theaters, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle climbed to the top of the box-office chart, dethroning Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and proving that there is some serious life in this two-decade old franchise. Here’s the full weekend box office chart:
Film | Weekend | Per Screen | Total | |
1 | Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | $36,000,000 (-28%) | $9,471 | $244,372,666 |
2 | Insidious: The Last Key | $29,265,000 | $9,392 | $29,265,000 |
3 | Star Wars: The Last Jedi | $23,551,000 (-55%) | $5,565 | $572,513,602 |
4 | The Greatest Showman | $13,800,000 (-11%) | $4,129 | $75,904,372 |
5 | Pitch Perfect 3 | $10,225,000 (-39%) | $2,957 | $85,984,090 |
6 | Ferdinand | $7,730,000 (-32%) | $2,449 | $70,499,118 |
7 | Molly’s Game | $7,000,000 (+197%) | $4,353 | $14,216,560 |
8 | Darkest Hour | $6,355,000 (+15%) | $3,667 | $28,393,107 |
9 | Coco | $5,539,000 (-25%) | $2,924 | $192,081,961 |
10 | All the Money in the World | $3,550,000 (-36%) | $1,672 | $20,131,909 |
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle doesn’t have its original star (RIP Robin Williams) and it switched the concept from a board game that comes to life to a video game that sucks players into it. But the name alone, plus stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, are propelling J:WttJ to major ticket sales. The film has now grossed an impressive $244 million in the U.S. and $519 million worldwide. Within a day or two it will have doubled the gross of the first movie from 1995; Welcome to the Jungle dropped just 28 percent from last weekend to this weekend, suggesting it could still have a long life ahead of it in theaters. It is already the ninth-highest grossing movie of 2017. It’s made more money in the U.S. than Justice League.
Runner-up on the box office chart was the one new wide release of the weekend: the horror sequel Insidious: The Last Key. The fourth film in the franchise benefited from weak competition for horror movies in multiplexes, and had a bigger opening weekend than Insidious: Chapter 3, with an estimated $29.2 million debut. Audiences weren’t wildly enthused with the film, which got just a B- from CinemaScore. Still, The Last Key looks to be in line with the previous movies in terms of earnings; another modest success for Universal. It may not be the last Insidious after all.
The bad news for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is that it continues to drop at a pretty high rate; dipping 55 percent last weekend and falling to third place on the box office chart. The good news for Last Jedi is it’s already earned $572 million in the U.S. and is the number one movie of 2017. It also passed Rogue One to become the second highest-grossing Star Wars movie in history, both domestically and worldwide (before adjusted for inflation). It’s total grosses around the globe now stand at $1.2 billion. Rounding out the top five this weekend were The Greatest Showman (dropping just 11 percent and amid word of mouth from audiences) and Pitch Perfect 3, which is inching closer to $100 million in domestic ticket sales.
The highest per-screen averages of the weekend belonged to a pair of awards contenders: Steven Spielberg’s The Post and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Both films slightly expanded their respective limited releases, and both continued to draw big crowds in a few theaters nationwide. The Post earned an average of $47,222 on 36 screens while Phantom Thread made $245,000 on 6 screens, for an average of $40,833.