What did you do over the Labor Day weekend? Hike? Watch college football? Go to a movie?
Well, if it’s the latter, you might’ve had the theater pretty much to yourself. Despite a bevy of newcomers (and one very, very old re-release), Weapons won the weekend box-office title for the third time in four weeks.
The R-rated horror flick isn’t running quite as fast as it has in weeks past. The film earned $10.5 million in North America over the traditional three-day weekend, which only would’ve been good enough for a fifth-place finish less than a month ago (Aug. 8-10). Add in the receipts from Labor Day, and Weapons’ four-day take rises to $12.8 million.
But hey, you won’t hear the folks at Warner Bros. complaining too much. Weapons has now earned $135 million stateside and $235.2 million worldwide. That’s not child’s play.
Weapons may be—in theatrical terms—an old movie, but it has nothing over our second-place film. Jaws, re-released in honor of its 50th anniversary, gobbled up $9.9 million over the four-day holiday weekend. That’s actually about $3 million more than it earned when it first swam into theaters in 1975. Granted, the $7 million Jaws earned in its initial opening frame was worth quite a bit more back then. But still, it looks like Jaws is gonna need a bigger safe.
Freakier Friday finished third over the four-day weekend, banking $8.3 million to push its overall domestic tally to $82.2 million (and its worldwide gross to $132.6 million). That helped spoil the opening for the black comedy The Roses, which sprouted a mere $8 million over that same time frame. The Roses didn’t do much better overseas, either: Despite starring two prominent British performers (Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch), its international take stands at just $9.2 million, bringing its worldwide bank to $17.2 million. One wonders if The Roses, had it gone by any other name, would it still have wilted so quickly.
Another newcomer, Caught Stealing, closes out the box office’s top five, swiping $7.9 million in North America and $15 million worldwide. Meanwhile, the unrated version of The Toxic Avenger proved to be pretty toxic to moviegoers: It earned $1.3 million to finish 14th. Looks like the title protagonist was the only thing green about this film.
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