The Hollywood industry had a roller coaster summer, with total box office receipts coming in flat, a movie analyst said Sunday.
The weekend box office, meanwhile, saw “Don’t Breathe” lead the pack with a modest $3 million in estimated sales this weekend, not including Labor Day receipts.
“Overall summer revenue for 2016 is still in a neck and neck battle with last year, that could put this summer statistically dead even with the summer of 2015’s $4.5 billion final full season total,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the industry analyst at comScore.
“Don’t Breathe,” the continent’s most popular movie right now, was expected to deal $19.4 million in tickets by the close of business Labor Day, bringing the low budget offering from Sony up to $51.1 million over two weeks.
“Suicide Squad” was expected to close in at around the $13 million mark the four-day weekend. Over five weeks it has amassed $297.4 million in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates gathered by comScore.
Two kidflicks came in nearly tied for third and fourth: “Pete’s Dragon” at $8.9 million and “Kubo And The Two Strings” at $8.5 million.
And the raunchy “Sausage Party” was in fifth place with $6.7 million on its fourth weekend of exhibition, and $88.4 million in sales over four weeks.
A romantic drama from Disney, “The Light Between Oceans,” opened in limited release at sixth place, at $6.3 million in projected sales.
Rounding out the 10 most-popular films in North America over the four- day weekend, as estimated by the studios and collated by comScore, were “Bad Moms” ($5.9 million), “War Dogs” ($4.7 million over the three-day period ending Sunday), ($5.8 million over four days) “Hell Or High Water” ($5.5 million) and “Mechanic: Resurrection” ($4.3 million over the three-day period).
Four day projections for “War Dogs” and “Mechanic: Resurrection” were not immediately available.
–City News Service