Box Office Week: Night School takes #1 with an okay $28M. Smallfoot comes #2 with an underwhelming $23M. Hell Fest opens poorly at #6 with $5M. The documentary Free Solo opens to best per theater average of the year, $75.2K.

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Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #	Percentage Change	Budget
1	Night School	$28,000,000	$33,500,000	1	N/A	$29M
2	Smallfoot	$23,020,000	$38,620,000	1	N/A	$80M
3	The House With A Clock In Its Walls	$12,510,000	$53,813,799	2	-53.0%	$42M
4	A Simple Favor	$6,600,000	$62,866,808	3	-35.6%	$20M
5	The Nun	$5,435,000	$330,018,048	4	-45.5%	$22M

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Notable Box Office Stories

• Night School - I'm really starting to worry about Kevin Hart. Not for his career mind you, his latest film Night School opened to a pretty solid #1 with $28M. I'm more worried the man has some kind of Crank 2: High Voltage situation going on where he literally can't stop or he'll die. And speaking of it's fitting his costar in this is Tiffany Haddish who has taken her breakout in last year's Girls Trip and ran with it appearing in 4 feature films this year. Both stars feel like they are in constant danger of overexposure but it seems Haddish is the more likely to feel that potential backlash. As for Night School it will be interesting to see if it plays more like a Kevin Hart film, which tend to perform around 2x multipliers, or like director Malcolm D. Lee's previous film, the aforementioned Girls Trip. That bad girl came out in July to $30M and became a very successful counter-programming hit crossing over $100M domestic. Now Girls Trip had the advantage of much better reviews on its side (Night School in reverse was mostly trashed by critics) but Girls Trip got an A+ on Cinemascore and Night School got an A- so the difference is not as stark with audiences. It could hold well especially as we come to a pretty comedy free zone with the big releases being stuff like A Star is Born, Venom, and First Man. With a $29M budget the film is at least in the clear so Tiffany and Kevin please just take a nap. Movies will still be there, you don't have to be in all of them.
• Smallfoot - It's very clear that the emerging Warner Animation Group has two kind of plays, a February play and a September play. A February play is a big release with a lot of hype, aka the LEGO Movie and the LEGO Batman movie. The others are original films (or a lesser known LEGO property) that they expect to not open as well but at least have decent holds. Such is the case for Smallfoot which at least was the best opening for the latter category at #2 with $23M. WB is clearly hoping the film makes it on scheduling and charm in hopes it can perform like 2016's Storks, which also opened in September to $20M+ and crossed $70M domestic. The strange thing is if Smallfoot performs the same way as Storks it too will just barely pass its budget of $80M and Storks didn't even cross $200M worldwide which is very likely for Smallfoot as well. It's interesting that WAG is performing how Illumiation was supposed to be, a studio making less expensive CG animated films who would make up the difference in box office with cheaper costs. Except Illumination has turned into a massive juggernaut and WAG is just not there yet. Smallfoot will probably make enough in home video and streaming sales to make a profit but it's not quite where I think WB wanted WAG to be when it started up almost 5 years ago.
• Hell Fest - Isn't Hell Fest just so strange? I mean it's such a 1980s slasher idea but it's not retro in any way. It's just hey some teens get killed at a horror themed amusement park, go see it. Well guess most people didn't as the film opened pretty low to #6 with $5.5M. The film is the second horror film this year from CBS Films who've decided to make the bold move from producing auteur driving dramas like Hell or High Water and Patriot's Day to producing garbage high concept but inexpensive horror including Winchester earlier this year. Obviously with a budget of just $5M that Hell Fest was always going to be an easy minor win but even opening this low and with a C rating on Cinemascore and not screening for critics just makes it all seem so...sad.
• Free Solo - The much acclaimed rock climbing doc opened in 4 theaters this weekend to $300K which gives it a per theater average of $75,201, which beats Eighth Grade to become the best per theater average of 2018. The film tells the story of a free solo (aka rock climbing without any safety ropes) climber Alex Honnold and his attempt to free solo climb El Capitan. Produced by Nat Geo this has been a big deal for them with three years in the making and much more involved distribution release than the usual air on TV and sell to schools model. This is a pretty good opening for the film and hype could push a solid doc release. Most critics have praised the film's for playing like an action blockbuster (free solo climbers often die during these climbs and the film doesn't shy away from that) and they all say to see it on a big screen. It's also been a very good year for docs at the box office with three from 2018 (RGB, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and Three Identical Strangers) all passing $10M domestic which is tough for any doc but especially ones in the days of streaming. With this opening it's very possible Free Solo could become the fourth especially if it becomes more of an event film.

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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 (Weekly)	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
Deadpool 2	$3,376	$318,485,776	$734,240,271	$110M	20
Incredibles 2	$667,224	$606,772,582	$1,210,072,582	$200M	16
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom	$245,530	$416,622,145	$1,303,722,145	$170M	15
Ant-Man and the Wasp	$352,666	$216,149,872	$620,538,813	$162M	13
Teen Titans Go! To The Movies	$115,598	$29,460,115	$50,160,115	$10M	10
Mission: Impossible - Fallout	$1,594,266	$219,178,933	$789,878,933	$178M	10
Crazy Rich Asians	$8,607,292	$165,681,775	$218,881,775	$30M	7

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Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Solo: A Star Wars Story	$213,767,512	$392,849,523	$275M
Ocean's 8	$139,377,762	$296,377,762	$70M
The Equalizer 2	$102,084,362	$184,014,857	$62M
Sicario: Day of the Soldado	$50,072,235	$73,303,489	$35M

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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 (which have recently been updated).

Submitted October 01, 2018 at 08:59PM by mi-16evil https://ift.tt/2DMCWSy