<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Angel Has Fallen easily topped the box office with a $21.3 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday, as the action sequel became the latest mid-budget release to find modest success in the often quiet late summer.<\/p>\n
The Lionsgate film beat expectations going into the weekend, opening similarly to the previous 2016 installment “London Has Fallen.” The film series stars Gerard Butler as a Secret Service agent protecting the U.S. president played by Morgan Freeman. In “Angel Has Fallen,” Butler’s agent is wrongly accused of trying to assassinate the president.<\/p>\n
Going back to 2013′s “Olympus Has Fallen,” the franchise has been a quietly consistent performer, taking in roughly $200 million worldwide each time. “Angel Has Fallen,” produced for about $40 million by Millennium Films, is poised for a similar course, opening just shy of the $21.6 million “London Has Fallen” debut. David Spitz, president of domestic distribution for Lionsgate, pointed to the film’s A-minus CinemaScore and 94 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (far better than the 39 percent critic score) as good word-of-mouth harbingers for the continued playability of “Angel Has Fallen” through the last weeks of summer.<\/p>\n
“That’s a great sign that the movie is going to be theaters for a long time,” Spitz said. “Over-performing this weekend and exit polls suggesting we’re going to have a nice long runway is terrific.”<\/p>\n
Late August is known as a sleepy period at the box office, but it’s also one of the few parts of the calendar relatively light on big-budget tentpole releases.<\/p>\n
That’s given some room for recent successes such as Universal’s comedy hit “Good Boys,” which slid to second with $11.8 million. Last week, it became the first R-rated comedy in more than three years to land at No.1. And the Lionsgate-distributed “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” has also flourished in August, taking in $50.5 million in three weeks including $6 million this weekend.<\/p>\n
Some of the bigger films are still expanding around the globe, though. The “Fast & Furious” spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” opened this weekend in China — where the high-octane franchise has regularly thrived — grossing $102 million and pushing the film to a worldwide total of $588.9 million.<\/p>\n
Disney’s “The Lion King,” after seven weeks of release, still ranks among the top four films domestically and has now passed $1.5 billion worldwide. That ranks ninth all-time, not accounting for inflation.<\/p>\n
However, the acclaimed Fox Searchlight horror release “Ready or Not,” about a bride forced into a deadly game of hide-and-seek with her new in-laws, got off to a lackluster start. It took in $7.6 million in ticket sales and $10.6 million since opening Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Faring better was the Christian film “Overcomer,” from Sony’s Affirm Films, which landed in third with an $8 million opening weekend. It also scored an A-plus CinemaScore from audiences.<\/p>\n
Among specialty releases, Amazon’s “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” about a young woman (Jillian Bell) who devotes herself to running to lose weight, scored the weekend’s most packed theaters. It debuted with a per-theater average of $35,194 in five locations.<\/p>\n
And Roadside Attractions’ “Peanut Butter Falcon” made an impression in expansion, taking in $3 million from 984 theaters. The film stars Zack Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson. (Foxnews)<\/p>\n
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