Box Office Breakdown: Three Big Bombs and Some Sleeper Hits

New releases were trounced by a few growing sleeper hits and old standbys in this week's box office.  As predicted by every news outlet, Monster Trucks bombed hard.  The movie's marketing had a strange direct-to-video vibe that felt akin to the awful low-budget ripoffs from The Asylum, the production house behind almost real-sounding movies like Transmorphers, Snakes on a Train, Titanic II, Atlantic Rim, Sinister Squad, and, of course, the Sharknado series.  The kicker, though, is that this wasn't made by some obscure company for pennies, but by Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Studios for over $125 million.  Paramount parent company Viacom apparently expected the bomb as well, since The Hollywood Reporter claims they took a $115 million write down several months ago for the "expected poor performance" of Monster Trucks (original article here).  

The more surprising poor performances this week come from Scorcese's prestige drama Silence, and Ben Affleck's period gangster flick Live By Night.  Both films expanded from smaller runs, and both failed to even make it into the top ten.  With budgets hovering around $40-60 million each, they'll be lucky to even make half back, and considering how expensive marketing budgets can be these days, their backers must be sweating bullets. Ben Affleck's DOA performance here is all the more perplexing when considering the surprise success of his actioner The Accountant, which proved he still had some audience-driving star power in the tank.  My only guess is that the lackluster trailers, which revealed a somewhat confusing and sleepy lead performance by Affleck, coupled with middling reviews dampened enthusiasm enough that people decided to just pick another of the unprecedented wealth of movies in theaters at the moment.

On a positive note, Hidden Figures dropped an astonishingly low 10% from last weekend and once again claimed the top spot.  The feel-good historical picture has been buoyed by stellar word-of-mouth, and if this popularity continues, I'd be more than a little surprised if we don't see some awards love come Oscar time.  Similarly, La La Land actually gained about 43% compared to last weekend and jumped into second place after adding only 333 new screens.  The colorful Ryan Gosling Emma Stone musical seems to be the sleeper-hit of the season, and I'll be extremely baffled if it fails to break $100 million domestic.  Director Damien Chazelle has a real-deal blockbuster on his hands, and it's a bit refreshing that one of the main best picture front runners has scored so big at the box office, since the last three winners made a combined $143 million domestic.

A few other notes:

• Rogue One is in another neck-and-neck placing battle, this time it's between third and fourth with the animated musical Sing.  Sing will most likely stay ahead on this one, which I'm sure will send Disney crying all the way to the bank as Rogue One broke into the top ten all-time highest domestic grossing films this weekend, and looks set to break a billion worldwide within the next two weeks.
• The Bye Bye Man managed a Friday-the-13th appropriate $13 million as the highest placing new release, but still looks terrible.  Just stay home and watch It Follows on Netflix instead.
• Mark Wahlberg waves his American flag with Patriots Day, and comes up a little short (No pun intended.  Wahlberg is only several inches shy of average height).  Maybe Peter Berg will finally move on from his forgettable ripped-from-the-headlines directing phase and go back to being a solid that-guy character actor.  Not bloody likely. 
• Lastly, Sleepless proves that Jamie Foxx still isn't the amazing box office draw he always thought he was.

Check out the full three day estimated top ten:^

1. Hidden Figures - $20.4 million
2. La La Land - $14.5 million
3. Sing - $13.81 million
4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - $13.76 million
5. The Bye Bye Man - $13.3 million
6. Patriots Day - $12 million
7. Monster Trucks - $10.5 million
8. Sleepless - $8.4 million
9. Underworld: Blood Wars - $5.8 million
10. Passengers - $5.6 million

Wide-releases coming next week: Split, XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, and The Founder.

*Box office stats courtesy of boxofficemojo.com.