‘IF’ Claims Top Spot with $35 Million Opening at the BO!!

Overconfident tracking suggested that writer-director-star John Krasinski’s IF would open to around $40 million domestically, but the live-action animated family film is estimated to have earned around $35 million in its first weekend of release, thanks to a boost in numbers on Saturday. The film grossed $10 million on opening day, but positive word-of-mouth appears to have kicked in, with the movie showing healthy growth on day two of release. Krasinski is coming off the blockbuster success of his two A Quiet Place movies, which grossed a combined total of nearly $650 million worldwide.

Reportedly, Paramount gave him a budget of over $100 million to make the movie, which also features Ryan Reynolds, newcomer Cailey Fleming, and a star-studded cast of voice performers. Mixed critical response — IF sits at a “rotten” 49% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — certainly impacted its opening, although the A CinemaScore and 87% audience score on RT appears to have counterbalanced any quibbles that critics might have had. Family movies tend to have long legs at the box office, and despite competition from The Garfield Movie next week, IF will eventually find its feet.

Slipping to second place after debuting at number one last weekend, 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is looking at around $25 million this weekend, which will take its running domestic total past the $100 million mark. This represents a rather healthy 56% drop from the opening weekend — a stronger hold than the franchise’s previous installment, War for the Planet of the Apes. Kingdom is the fourth entry in the Planet of the Apes reboot series, which has generated nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.

The Summer Box Office Is Still Waiting to Explode

Debuting at number three is the latest horror offering at the box office, The Strangers — Chapter 1. The film comes after a string of horror under-performers such as Abigail, The First Omen, and most recently, Tarot. While its $11 million debut doesn’t indicate that the once-lucrative genre’s fortunes are turning around just yet, The Strangers exceeded projections in its debut weekend.

The fourth spot went to Universal’s The Fall Guy, which seems to be stabilizing itself after a lackluster opening a couple of weeks ago. In its third weekend, the big-budget action-comedy grossed an estimated $8.5 million, taking its running total to just under $65 million. Rounding out the top five, Focus Features’ Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black tanked with less than $3 million. This represents a surprisingly tragic number for a music biopic, a genre that has been hitting all the right notes recently with hits such as Elvis and Bob Marley: One Love.