Box Office Week: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 easily holds onto #1 with an excellent second weekend haul of $63M. Meanwhile Snatched surprises at #2 with $17.5M, but mostly because King Arthur: Legend of the Sword utterly bombs, opening at #3 with $14.7M (the film carries a budget of $175M)

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2	$63,007,000	$630,564,419	2
2	Snatched	$17,500,000	$20,700,000	1
3	King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	$14,700,000	$43,800,000	1
4	The Fate of the Furious	$5,301,160	$1,193,435,090	5
5	The Boss Baby	$4,600,000	$456,441,204	7

Notable Box Office Stories:

• While certainly Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 coming in #1 again this weekend was a certainty against such flimsy competition, the film still managed a solid hold with $63M. That places the film's current domestic haul at $246.1M so far and it should pass $250M by tomorrow. The weekend drop for the film is 57% which while not quite as impressive as the first Guardians' second weekend drop of 55%, it's damn close and pretty great for a summer release. In terms of other MCU second sequels that drop is right on the money and very close to the best performing second sequel as Captain America: The Winter Solider saw just a slightly better drop of 56.6% during it's April 2014 run. However it's in comparison with the original where we do see a slight wobble, in that despite opening in the fairly dead August timeslot Guardians 1 did face very stiff competition against Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which opened to $65M for mostly the same audience at #1 and still Guardians 1 had a better second weekend drop than the Vol 2. What I think what we'll be seeing with this run is the difference between surprise and brand loyalty. Guardians 1 certainly opened strong but used incredible word of mouth to keep dropping slightly as people kept recommending trying this oddball property. Now that the Guardians brand is established Vol. 2 is performing more like a classic sequel. In that regards Guardians Vol. 2 is on a great start but it's just not going to have that shine of new on it and it will suffer in some regards. Next weekend should be a very interesting test for the legs of the film as it is opening against Alien: Covenant but that film, at least in the foreign markets (see below), is showing signs of weakness.

• Certainly Snatched earned its #2 spot solely by the failure of King Arthur as it had a pretty rocky start, opening slightly under expectations with $17.5M. This film marked an interesting downturn for Amy Schumer who's previous leading film (that she also wrote as well as starred in) Trainwreck opened to a very surprising $30M on its opening weekend. Snatched also marked a decade and a half return to cinema for Goldie Hawn who seemed poised to help garner the target demo, older moms who would presumably go along with their young daughters. On that front the film performed pretty well with 72% of the audience over the age of 25, which that might be actually be too high of a split and it questions whether it was Schumer of Hawn that brought butts to seats this weekend. However with 77% of the audience female it's clear the direct targeting worked in terms of demo but it certainly didn't work in terms of volume. The film carriers a somewhat hefty budget of $42M which for an R-rated comedy is quite a lot. The film could hold as good counter-programming but just doesn't have the acclaim, the audience interest (it scored a middling B), and the market power to really make a dent.

• It seems the first box office disaster of 2017 is here as King Arthur: Legend of the Sword failed to even meet the most dire predictions opening at #3 with just $14.7M. The film carries a budget of $175M and was intended to start a 6 film King Arthur franchise which is all but cancelled now after this disasterous opening. Already predictions are the film could lose up to $150M for Warner Bros. With openings like these it's easy to of course blame the producers and director for making a bad film and with the film carrying a terrible 27% it seems perfectly queued up for "bad film, bad opening, what do you expect?" comments. However this is one of those interesting cases where audiences and critics completely disagree as King Arthur: LotS currently has a 79% approval rating from audiences on RT and the film scored a pretty solid B+ on Cinemascore so clearly the mix of fantasy action and Guy Ritchie's unique style of filmmaking worked for many who saw it. The next culprit is of course the marketing which certainly seemed to emphasize the whole King Arthur's journey from roustabout to king (which is particular odd since the entirety of his childhood and young adulthood were presented in a super fast 3 minute montage) instead of the more expensive CGI fantasy elements that bookend the film. It's also clear the marketing had no idea the tone it was trying to set, often trailers going from comedy to a dark gritty serious retelling of a famous story. However I think the biggest culprit of all is that Hollywood needs to learn that Game of Thrones is fluke. It's clear Arthur is trying to tap into the same market, as it completely abandons any sense of Arthurian legend for Harry Potter style giant snakes, LOTR style giant elephants, and Witcher 3 style spooky shadow warriors and wants to be the next blockbuster spectacle. However while it apes from those other properties it's clear King Arthur: LotS was greenlit because of Game of Thrones, which is one of, if not the biggest international hit shows on the planet right now. It seems easy to look at Game of Thrones and think violent high fantasy is a major ticket item these days but it's simply not the case. Game of Thrones didn't just lock into a great market, it built one season by season as each one got the same critical acclaim and interest as people kept pushing their friends and families to watch it. Films just don't have that luxury which is why the market is so saturated with recognizable titles, because performance's like these show audiences just won't give a chance to something they might like if it's something they don't know. King Arthur is a weird property which is both extremely well know yet feels totally played out on in terms of film landscape. Maybe if the marketing had been stronger and the reviews kinder this film wouldn't have bombed, but I still think there is just a deep-seated disinterest in the market for this kind of big budget fantasy storytelling if there's not a major brand already associated with it.

• It seems the odd nature of its existence is hurting Alien: Covenant as while the film opened internationally to $42M, it is vastly underperforming from its predecessor Prometheus. The sequel to that solidly performing film is clearly trying to brand itself more as franchise fodder with the direct Alien brand name and the Xenomorph all over the posters and trailers, but it's simply not opening up to snuff of the original. In the UK and France the opening was 40% lower than Prometheus and in Australia the opening was down a whopping 80%. As the film is about to open in the US it seems clear that the franchise may not be as strong in name recognition as previously thought and could put in jeopardy many of the plans Ridley Scott has for future Alien films.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Your Name	$4,717,066	$354,239,149	Unk	37
Moonlight	$27,854,931	$55,800,987	$1.5M	30
Get Out	$174,528,820	$214,328,820	$4.5M	12
Beauty and the Beast (2017)	$493,191,164	$1,206,491,164	$160M	9
The Fate of the Furious	$215,035,090	$1,193,435,090	$250M	5

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
A Dog's Purpose	$64,321,890	$188,216,556	$22M

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice.

Submitted May 16, 2017 at 12:02AM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2qkcUhg