Share

A Quiet Place sneaks back into the top spot at the box office

Los Angeles — It was another weekend of buzz versus pure star power at the box office as the word of mouth sensation A Quiet Place found itself neck-and-neck again with Dwayne Johnson's Rampage. This time buzz had the slight advantage.

Studio estimates on Sunday placed A Quiet Place, with $22 million, in first, and Rampage in second with $21m.

Still, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place continues to be a mini phenomenon. With a $17m production budget, the horror film has grossed $132.4m from North American theatres in three weeks. Rampage, too, is down only 41 percent domestically in its second weekend and continues to rake in the dollars globally. The film boasts a worldwide tally of $283m, and Johnson has continued using his social media accounts to hype the film and thank audiences.

"I never take success like this for granted. Global success like this means so much," Johnson posted on his Instagram account Saturday night.

"I'm not a Marvel movie. It's not Star Wars. Rampage may as well have been called 'Dwayne Johnson and his albino gorilla friend' because it's such an obscure video game ... Thank you guys so much."

The staying power of both somewhat overshadowed the newcomers, like Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty and the sequel to the 2001 cult comedy Super Troopers, both of which nevertheless managed to find their own niche audiences despite largely negative reviews.

I Feel Pretty, released by STX Entertainment, grossed an estimated $16.2m — a little less than half of what Schumer's Trainwreck opened to in July 2015. Unlike Trainwreck, Schumer did not write I Feel Pretty, which is about an insecure woman who gets a life-changing confidence boost after a head injury. The concept became somewhat divisive and the subject of a fair amount of scrutiny.

"She's a force and that's not going to change," notes comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "She's always going to push the envelope. Sometimes that will bring big box office, sometimes it won't."

The partially crowd-funded Super Troopers 2, meanwhile, leaned into its 20 April opening and scored a fourth place, $14.7m opening weekend for Broken Lizards and distributor 20th Century Fox.

Fifth place went to the Blumhouse horror Truth or Dare with $7.9m in its second weekend, while Lionsgate's thriller Traffik, with Paula Patton, launched in ninth with $3.9m.

The box office for the year remains down about 2.4 percent from last year, but that will change next week.

"We're going to see a huge turnaround later this week in the box office fortunes with Avengers: Infinity War," Dergarabedian said.

The film is tracking to make over $200m in its first weekend in theatres, leading some experts to wonder whether the superhero pic could have the highest opening of all time, beating out even Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE