Hollywood No Match for Mayweather vs. McGregor

So the only new movies arriving in wide release over the weekend (1,500 screens or more) were from independents. The Weinstein Company booked an animated film called “Leap!” into 2,575 theaters and collected about $5 million, according to comScore. BH Tilt and WWE Studios rolled out a micro-budgeted kung fu drama, “Birth of the Dragon,” in 1,618 theaters and managed $2.5 million in ticket sales.

Photo

The No. 1 movie was a holdover, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” (Lionsgate), which took in about $10.1 million for a two-week domestic total of $39.6 million — hit territory for a film that carried relatively modest production and marketing costs. The horror sequel “Annabelle: Creation” (Warner Bros.) was second, collecting roughly $7.4 million, for a three-week total of $77.9 million. Third place went to “Leap!”

The only other new release was “All Saints” (Sony), a faith-based movie that cost about $2 million to make. It collected about $1.6 million from 846 locations.

An already slow weekend was made worse by competition from television; the Saturday night fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor was expected to generate $500 million in pay-per-view sales in the United States alone. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior comScore analyst, said that movie-theater turnout in Texas was unusually low — the likely result of Harvey, which made landfall near Corpus Christi on Friday and caused catastrophic flooding in Houston.

Photo

A few specialty films had notable ticket sales. “Wind River,” a mystery written and directed by Taylor Sheridan (“Hell or High Water”), expanded into more locations in its fourth weekend and took in $4.4 million, according to the Weinstein Company, which released the film. Total ticket sales for “Wind River” now stand at nearly $10 million.

The indie comedy “The Big Sick” (Lionsgate) collected $745,000 in its 10th weekend of release, pushing total ticket sales to roughly $40 million. With that result, “The Big Sick,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, joined an elite club: Over the last decade, only two other Sundance entrants have crossed that mark. The others were “Manchester by the Sea,” which generated $47 million earlier this year, and “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” which earned $55.2 million in 2009, after adjusting for inflation.

Continue reading the main story