This past weekend was the worst performing box office weekend of 2017, thus far. While The Fate of the Furious repeated atop the list for a third week (taking in $19.3 million and pushing its worldwide total above one billion!), new films starring the likes of Emma Watson (fresh from Beauty and the Beast) and Tom Hanks fizzled. But it was a very good weekend for Mexican star Eugenio Derbez and a sequel from “Bollywood.”
Pantelion Films, a subsidiary of Lionsgate Films, and the company that released Derbez’s 2013 hit comedy Instructions Not Included, struck gold once again with How to Be a Latin Lover. The comedy, which opened on 1,118 screens, earned an impressive $12 million. That is the biggest opening weekend for a Pantelion release and only helps to cement Derbez’s status as a crossover star. Not bad for a man who has eclipsed the age of 50 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016.
As impressive as the performance of Latin Lover was it pales in comparison to India’s Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. Opening on just 425 screens, the film made $10.1 million! That’s a per theater average of $23.8k. Compare that to fourth place finisher for the weekend, STX Films’ The Circle starring Emma Watson, Tom Hanks and rising star John Boyega. That film opened on more than 3,100 screens and only made $9.3 million ($2,947 PTA).
Elsewhere, The Boss Baby is still a hit with kids with more than $148M after five weeks; Going in Style is doing well with older audiences (adding another $3.5 million to bring its four-week total to $37.3 million); and Jordan Peele’s Get Out is still registering weekend grosses over $1 million in its tenth week of release! Universal Studios is milking every bit that it can of Peele’s directorial debut before it has its digital and Blu-ray release later in May. The studio gave it nearly 600 more screens as a last hurrah in scaring the bejesus out of audiences.
In limited release, Sleight from Blumhouse Tilt registered $1.69 million from 565 locations and Rami Malek, star of the hit TV series Mr. Robot, and his film Buster’s Mal Heart opened on a single screen and earned an estimated $7,800.
Up this weekend it’s all about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
