This weekend across the pond featured Super Bowl 54, a day when the focus is on the big sporting rivalry, and traditionally when the studios tend to pump the brakes on big film releases for fear of competing. Preferring to pepper the game day with ads for future movies, there were only a couple of new arrivals in the Stateside box office charts, and the weekend was won once again by Bad Boys For Life, which earned $17.7 million, according to studio estimates.
This third Boys outing has set a new franchise record in terms of worldwide earnings, making $291 million globally so far and on track to keep going for a little longer, even in the face of far tougher competition next week.
1917, which has just celebrated another successful night in Oscar season, held firm to second place, adding $9.6 million, while Dolittle also stayed where it was with $7.7 million. You have to clamber down to fourth place to find the first of week's newbies, as horror fantasy Gretel & Hansel earned $6.050 million. That's on the low end of expectations, but with a relatively thrifty $5 million budget (before marketing), it has less of a thorny path to walk to profitability than some of its bigger chart mates.
In fifth we find The Gentlemen, which dropped a place and took in $6.010 million, while Jumanji: The Next Level made $6 million. Seventh was Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, using its force powers to grab $3.1 million.
At Eighth, horror pic The Turning took home $3.05 million, ahead of Little Women on $3 million. Finally, we must turn to the big flop of the weekend, as action thriller The Rhythm Section, hurt by bad reviews and limited advertising, landed with a thud at 10th with a catastrophic $2.8 million. Given a $50 million price tag (before ads etc.), that's not good, and would appear to shut down any thoughts of kicking off a new franchise. Launching the film on this quiet moviegoing weekend never appeared to be a big sign of confidence in its hopes...