BOX OFFICE: ‘DON’T BREATHE’ TOPS AS ‘MORGAN’ PASSES OUT

Sourced from Boxofficemojo.com

As expected Screen Gem’s Don’t Breathe held on to the number one spot comfortably on a rather sparse weekend for new releases. The horror hit has already notched up an impressive $51 million domestically and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that it could add another 50% to that total by the end of its theater run. With Halloween now just weeks away, Don’t Breathe won’t be the last horror success over the upcoming weeks but it’s still further proof that the genre is in rude health fiscally speaking. However, this weekend wasn’t quite so kind for new releases…

Fox’s Morgan couldn’t even manage to scrape into this week’s top ten -it only just managed 17th place with just shy of $2million in earnings- but instead suffered the ignominy of having the 7th worst opening for a wide release (2,000+ theaters) ever. Although hopes and review scores weren’t exactly high for it, Fox would’ve have hoped to at least recoup most of its $8 million production budget over the weekend but it looks unlikely Morgan will manage that domestically in its entire run based on this opening.

The other wide release this weekend The Light Between Oceans also had a disappointing time at theaters despite its stellar cast featuring Micahel Fassbender and the “she’s so hot right now” Alicia Vikander. Middling reviews probably didn’t help and star power alone can rarely open a film these days, so although Disney may have hoped for a bit more cash from it, it’s not exactly a surprise to see this kind of product opening to slightly less than $5 million.

Disney will, however, be very happy to see Pete’s Dragon fly into the top 3 on the back of just a 13% drop off. With Kubo and the Two Strings pulling off a similar feat to finish in fourth, it shows that audiences were in the mood for some quality family entertainment over the Labor Day weekend as both films were no doubt helped significantly by their strong reception from critics.

Elsewhere, Suicide Squad had a better than expected weekend to remain at number 2. While it hasn’t been quite the raging box office success Warners were counting on for it, it’s probably safely out of flop territory now and that has to go down as some kind of win in the current blockbuster climate.

And finally, one film that will be delighted with its weekend takings is the modern western Hell or High Water. It has the second highest screen average in the top ten after going on wide release this week and its impressive 98% on RT.com means it could be in for a solid performance in theaters over the next few weeks.

Overall, it was a healthy weekend for what is considered a graveyard slot in the release calender as the top 12 films this week generated 13% more revenue than the equivalent weekend last year.