Box Office Week: A Quiet Place surprises with massive $50M opening at #1 while Blockers opens solid at #3 to $21.4M. Meanwhile, Black Panther becomes the #3 highest grossing film domestically ($665.3M) and the #10 highest grossing film worldwide ($1.299B).

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	A Quiet Place	$50,000,000	$71,000,000	1
2	Ready Player One	$25,060,000	$391,320,525	2
3	Blockers	$21,439,000	$32,139,000	1
4	Black Panther	$8,430,000	$1,299,855,740	8
5	I Can Only Imagine	$8,356,800	$69,084,002	4

Notable Box Office Stories:

• A Quiet Place - It's quite telling how much the box office landscape for horror has changed in just the last year that a $17M horror film that's mostly dialogue free can open better than a $175M Spielberg blockbuster based on a hit YA book. But that's where we are as A Quiet Place smashed expectations and had an unbelievable opening at #1 with $50M. The film directed by John Krasinski and staring his real world wife Emily Blunt had a pretty unique idea of a family trying to survive monsters that hunt by sound. It seems the mix of that unique premise plus the added name value of the two leads was a factor, but world of mouth was the real savior as A Quiet Place had strong Thursday numbers but by Sunday was dominating. The opening was in fact the second biggest opening ever for an original horror film behind The Village (though actuals could have it topping that) and topping every opening for major franchises The Conjuring and Insidious. The film played pretty across the board demographically with 49% male and 51% female but surprisingly 63% of the audience was over the age of 25, an odd figure for the usually younger skewing genre which may indicate strong legs. Old audiences may like a horror film that appeals to an older crowd who may like that the main protagonists are parents in their 40s and their children rather than the stereotypical disposable teens. The film scored an excellent B+ rating on Cinemascore which is usually very unkind to horror. Both Split and Don't Breathe scored that rating and had great legs so expect this film to have a long shelf-life.

• A Quiet Place (cont.)- As mentioned before A Quiet Place feels like another step in the incredible growing importance of horror in the marketplace. The 2010s have seen a major horror revival and last year felt like a banner year. First Blumhouse scored two major hits with Split and then Get Out, both of which debuted above $30M which is incredibly rare for horror and managed to hold very well with Get Out briefly holding the R-rated horror. Then of course there was IT, the first horror film to pass $100M opening and has now set an insanely high bar for all horror films to reach towards. IT was the first film that showed horror could play like a super hero film its domestic and foreign gross far surpassed films with 10x its budget. Last year A Quiet Place opening to $50M would look like the box office event of the century but in the wake of IT one wonders if opening like A Quiet Place will become the norm. Horror was never going to go away with the incredible ROI possibility (A Quiet Place's relatively high $17M budget was made 4x over just this opening weekend) but now its expanding beyond the usual horror crowds into the mainstream. A Quiet Place proved audiences are willing to take a risk (and shockingly shut up for 90 minutes) and Hollywood will continue to expand on the rewards they reap from these horror risks, which are barely risks to begin with for how relatively cheap they are.

• Blockers - The latest film to try to become the it comedy of 2018, Blockers, has opened to a solid #3 with $21.4M. While horror feels like its finally been revitalized and we are in a new golden age, comedy on the other hand has really been in a terrible spot for some time now. Many of the big stars of the past barely make a dent anymore with their films and it seems the only comedies that get any box office interest are the Daddy's Home films. However comedy fans may be seeing a bright spot with several good reviewed comedy films doing well. First was Girls Trip which surprised with great reviews, a star making performance for Tiffany Haddish, and $100M domestic. Next was Game Night which also surprised with good reviews and has had great legs currently with $67M despite opening to $17M. And now there's Blockers which on the surface looked like a terribly bland old school comedy that would get $12M opening and 17% on RT. However the film surprised critics when it premiered at SXSW and got pretty good reviews with praise aimed at the films lighter touches and social values. That critical praise likely helped push the film over the $20M mark but audiences don't seem as enthused as the film scored a B on Cinemascore. Blockers isn't a Get Out, it's the not the film that's going to be the start of the new comedic movement in Hollywood. But it's a step in the right direction and hopefully a sign that Hollywood is starting to inch itself out of the comedic sandtrap it's been stuck in.

• Chappaquiddick - There's always an odd story as to why a film like Chappaquiddick with all its Oscar baity stylings comes out in April to a better than expected but still disappointing #7 with $6.2M. The film was produced independently but picked up by the oddest and fakest named company, Entertainment Studios. The company has made an interesting name for itself last year distributing both VOD style movies to theaters like 47 Meters Down and The Hurricane Heist or Oscar wannabes like Hostiles and now Chappaquiddick. Run by Byron Allen the studio doesn't really have a clear style or purpose but apparently Chappaquiddick was a major passion of his as he invested $20M into the buying and marketing of the film. Weirdly the film was set for a 2017 Oscar season release but at the last minute was pushed to April 2018 dooming the film to worst time to release a film like this. Why the change is hard to say but you can put in your own Kennedy conspiracy theories here. At very least Entertainment Studios is at a point where it needs to find a voice. Small production companies like A24 and The Orchard have really set a name for themselves by sticking to a set ideology and the wild variety of past, present, and future Entertainment Studios releases could spell doom for the company down the road.

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 #
Coco	$209,619,025	$790,119,025	$175M	20
Star Wars: The Last Jedi	$620,168,021	$1,332,632,945	$200M	17
The Greatest Showman	$172,961,432	$420,241,250	$84M	16
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle	$403,641,093	$949,641,093	$90M	16
Annihilation	$32,500,720	$32,500,720	$40M	7
Love, Simon	$37,542,264	$42,978,096	$17M	4

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross	Worldwide Gross	Budget
Fifty Shades Freed	$100,407,760	$368,307,760	$55M

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

Submitted April 10, 2018 at 01:16AM by mi-16evil https://ift.tt/2Hcp8Bh