In the battle of the playthings, the good guys (and gals, and potatoes, and dinosaurs etc) won out over the villain at the Stateside box office this weekend. Toy Story 4, the latest Pixar release, handily saw off the Child's Play reboot to snatch the top spot with $118 million, according to studio estimates.
Of course, the new Toy Story's real competition was its own franchise history and studio stablemates. It's only the third-highest launch for a Pixar film, behind fellow sequels Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory, and that seemingly successful figure is lower than Disney's original projection of closer to $150 million. Still, with a $120 million overseas haul, it already has $238 million in the bank and what looks to be largely a clear run at its target audience until the Mouse House's next big release, The Lion King. Great reviews and solid audience reaction will also help the latest outing for Woody and the rest.
Child's Play, which initially angered fans of the venerable killer doll franchise by side-stepping many of the elements made famous by previous Chucky stalk-and-slash encounters, took second place, making $14 million. That's not a bad figure given its much lower $10 million budget.
Aladdin used its magic carpet to stay in place at third, earning $12.2 million, while Men In Black: International continued to sag, making just $10.7 million in fourth (by point of comparison, Aladdin has been in the charts for five weeks compared to MIB's two). Still, the agents can at least be happy with a $182 million worldwide take to date. Fifth was The Secret Life Of Pets 2, further impacted by new animated family competition and fetching just $10.2 million.
Rocketman dropped to sixth with $5.6 million, while John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum actually jumped back up one place to seventh on $4 million. Godzilla: King Of The Monsters was down to eighth and $3.7 million. Dark Phoenix continued to underperform, earning $3.6 million in ninth. Shaft fell to 10th on $3.5 million.
One out-of-top-10 release to report: Luc Besson's latest, assassin thriller Anna, stumbled badly in the States in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the director. It earned just $3.5 million in 11th place.
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