Box Office Week: Crazy Rich Asians takes #1 with $25M for the three-day weekend, and an excellent $34M five day haul. Mile 22 opens weak at #3 with $13.6M and Alpha disappoints at #5 with $10.5M. Billionaire Boys Club, a Kevin Spacey movie dumped into 8 theaters, grosses just $425.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #	Percentage Change	Budget
1	Crazy Rich Asians	$25,235,000	$34,731,769	1	N/A	$30M
2	The Meg	$21,150,000	$314,159,062	2	-53.4%	$130M
3	Mile 22	$13,620,000	$14,158,000	1	N/A	$35M
4	Mission: Impossible - Fallout	$10,500,000	$501,438,721	4	-45.7%	$178M
5	Alpha	$10,500,000	$10,500,000	1	N/A	$62M

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Notable Box Office Stories:

• Crazy Rich Asians - It's safe to say that the numbers for Crazy Rich Asians this weekend were some of the most important of the entire year. It's not a major film franchise starter (though it very well could be) and it's not a blockbuster tentpole but everything about the production was leading up to this moment when the film opened to #1 with $25.2M domestic, and $34M for the five-day haul (the film was released on Wednesday). In case you've just completely missed all film news for the last month the hype is in large part do to the casting, as this is the first all Asian-American cast for a major studio film since 1992's The Joy Luck Club. We'll get more into that in the next section so let's talk cold hard facts. The film had a great $5M Wednesday opening, driven in large part pushed by the social media tag #GoldOpen driving people to see the film as well as rich Asian business owners buying out whole theaters to give tickets away for free. Of the market breakdown a massive 38% of the audience share was Asian-American. In comparison, the biggest Asian-American turnout from last year was The Foreigner which scored just 18%. Also notable was the film had a 39% Caucasian audience which could indicate this will play as more than just a niche hit in a large but not massive population. In looking at future hauls, the best case scenario for the film is a run like The Help, which opened in August to a solid $20M but had amazing holds and managed to pass over $150M domestic. Scoring a great A on Cinemascore and generally good critic reviews, it seems this film could have a real shot at a similar run.
• Crazy Rich Asians (cont.) - If you want to get a good understanding of just how hard the producers of this film worked and how seriously they took it, I highly recommend this podcast interview with director Jon Chu and the writer of the original book the film is based on, Kevin Kwan. They go in-depth on many of the struggles of convincing Hollywood an all Asian cast could work including a meeting Kwan took with a major Hollywood executive who told him he'd only make the film if the lead character was changed to white. More importantly though is a fascinating bidding war that occured between Netflix and Warner Bros. Chu and Kwan ultimately went with WB, despite getting a smaller budget and salary, because they wanted to prove something. A well reviewed film on Netflix can easily disappear (especially with Netflix's GARBAGE recommendation system) and be dismissed but a major Hollywood studio film with an all Asian cast making over $100M domestic matters in proving there is a hungry market ready to see themselves on screen. And this is at a time when Asian population in the US is exploding, as the Asian-American population more than doubled since Joy Luck Club was released. And while some Asian nationalities connect with their home countries' films, most notably Indian-Americans and the rise of Bollywood and other Indian films being shown and making money in the US, there isn't that same crossover across the board. It also ignores how many of the 20 million Asian-American people are second, third, etc. generation who have little to no connection to the cinema of their immigrant relatives, who want to see their own lives portrayed on screen. Crazy Rich Asians is an important step in hoping to prove that outdated models of who sees what films and who wants to see themselves presented on-screen are just that, truly outdated and the coming weeks will show if that's really true.
• Mile 22 - Alright enough politics, let's talk about a duo that's never made a politically charged film in their career, Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg who released their fourth collaboration in 5 years with the action thriller Mile 22 which opened to a mild #3 (literally murder me for saying that) with $13.6M. While not devastating for the $35M budgeted film, it's not exactly a great start especially considered this was originally pitched as a new action franchise for Wahlberg to lead. Shockingly this isn't based on any recent real life tragic events and it seems despite the usual hesitation to their projects, Berg/Wahlberg seem to work better in that specific genre as Mile 22 received the worst reviews for Berg since Battleship and the worst for Wahlberg since Transformers: The Last Knight and pretty weak B- on Cinemascore. The film's best hope now is to make up some lost ground overseas where it has a long road ahead against a crowded field. For now perhaps Berg can get it back with his next film, Wonderland starring...OKAY Peter there are other actors you know! Maybe, I dunno give Liam Neeson a call. Maybe a Jeffrey Wright. Hell I'll settle for a Lukas Haas, just anybody else. Please.
• Alpha - The movie about the first rare pupper opened this week to a pretty disappointing #5 with $10.5M. The film about the first prehistoric human to befriend a wolf had an interesting premise on paper but terrible marketing made this look like a megabomb in the making, so the fact it crossed $10M is actually surprising. Perhaps the most shocking news about Alpha was this once seemingly summer blockbuster relegated to the doldrums of August was not terrible, at least according to critics and audiences. Not that it does much good opening this low, but perhaps with a wise overseas release the film will squeeze enough to cover its mid-sized $50M budget. At least I can say it was a pretty good doggo. 12/10
• Billionaire Boys Club - Oh I just love obligatory theatrical releases and this one was one of the more fascinating as the Kevin Spacey starrer opened in just 8 theaters to an incredibly low $425. The film based on a real life group of young kids who got rich with various Ponzi schemes in the 1980s was shot way back in 2015 and was intended as a notable player for its potentially young and up-and-coming cast including Ansel Elgort, Taron Egerton, Emma Roberts, and Billie Lourd. However it was Spacey who loomed largest over the film after his sexual assault allegations caused the film to be pulled from theaters. And unlike All the Money in the World the studio didn't feel like replacing Spacey was cheaper than just dumping the thing on VOD. But as often is the case with these contracts the film had to play theatrically somewhere so instead of the usual LA and NY indie house releases the film was just kinda peppered all over the country with no one really noticing it until film writers picked it up. The result, as expected, was abysmal with the film earning just $425 for the weekend. Sadly this film did not beat the incredible record set by the Katherine Heigl film Zyzzk Road which opened to a whopping $20 opening weekend for a lifetime domestic haul of $30, setting the fantastically low bar for worst opening and worst domestic release of all time.

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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 #
Avengers: Infinity War	$678,587,869	$2,045,810,611	$315M	17
Deadpool 2	$318,278,611	$733,621,974	$110M	14
Solo: A Star Wars Story	$213,459,662	$392,172,197	$275M	13
Hereditary	$44,007,963	$79,275,328	$10M	11
Incredibles 2	$594,119,848	$1,120,919,848	$200M	10
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom	$411,752,365	$1,289,952,365	$170M	9
Ant-Man and the Wasp	$208,358,650	$465,558,650	$162M	7

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Notable Film Closings

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Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at r/moviesboxoffice (which have recently been updated).

Submitted August 20, 2018 at 07:21PM by mi-16evil https://ift.tt/2N6xFWk