After suffering a run of weak earnings for his live-action offerings, Adam Sandler must be counting his blessings for the Hotel Transylvania franchise, with the second film opening stronger than the first and snatching the September opening record from its fangs with $47.5 million, according to studio estimates.
The new movie, fuelled by demand for family fare, proved to be a winner with audiences as it landed an A- minus from those polled. It also managed to win the best opening for a Sony Pictures Animation release. That sound you hear is executives scrambling to lock actors into details and brainstorming ideas for a third film.
Nancy Meyers also saw a healthy return for her efforts, with Anne Hathaway/Robert De Niro comedy drama The Intern arriving in second place with $18.2 million. Targeting generally older audiences, it’s a solid opening, if not her best launch – that would be What Women Want back in 2000. But this is still good news considering that her target audience doesn’t usually show up in big numbers for opening weekends. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials was pushed from last week’s top spot to third, earning an additional $14 million. Everest, which had hoped to scale the heights after a launch last week in IMAX and other premium formats, only saw a jump of one place for $13 million and $23.1 million so far. Johnny Depp gangster drama Black Mass rounded out the top five with $11.5 million.
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit slipped from third to sixth, earning $6.7 million, but with $52.2 million in the bank so far, it’s already in profit given the film’s $5 million budget. Stalker thriller The Perfect Guy fell to seventh with $4.7 million while faith-based drama War Room was down to eighth and $4.2 million. Arriving in fewer cinemas than most of its competition and relying on non-traditional advertising doesn’t really seemed to have helped Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, which has been sitting in release limbo for a while. The horror made $3.4 million its first weekend for a ninth-place launch. Finally, we have drug war thriller Sicario, which is riding a lot of praise but taking a slow-burn, platform release strategy. Playing on just 59 screens, the movie still managed to earn $1.7 million for $2.3 million to date, and it’ll be interesting to see if it gets a further boost from awards chatter.
To see Dracula and co. put the bite on the rest of the crowd in the full chart listings, head to Box Office Mojo.
from Empire News
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