Box Office Report for the Week of August 30

The summer movie season has come to a close with one hell of a run for movie theatres. Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues to hold strong as the weekend’s highest-grossing film, earning $22.2 million domestically and adding to a staggering global tally of $2.333 billion. Could Avengers: Doomsday beat this number? Hard to tell, but theatres wanted momentum, and they’ve got it.

Disappointingly so, Ridley Scott‘s The Dog Stars has completely crashed and burned at the box office, with negative reviews and an $8 million domestic opening. The film has opened with $19.3 million globally, which falls very short of its $70 to $110 million estimated budget figures floating around. Scott has experienced varying degrees of both successes and failures, especially in recent memory, with Gladiator II being a box-office hit, but The Dog Stars is certainly going to fall into the latter category.

On the flip side, a massive critical and commercial victory has occurred this weekend: the release of Dave Green‘s Coyote vs. Acme, which currently holds a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has overperformed at the box office. The latest live-action/animation Looney Tunes hybrid was set to open with $12 million in the domestic market, and ended up making $15.4 million. Of course, the end goal was to release the film, but seeing it perform well is one hell of a rebuke to Warner Bros., who wanted to scrap such a lovingly constructed movie outright. Now, the people have spoken!

Finally, Casper Kelly‘s Buddy also released this weekend, and the feature directorial debut of the Too Many Cooks creator opened with $5.3 million, doubling projections. It’s also the highest opening of the year for a film showing on less than 1800 screens. Certainly a good start for Roadside Attractions with such a buzzy title, which has been much talked about since its premieres at Sundance, South by Southwest, and Fantasia film festivals. This is also the independent studio’s second-highest-grossing opening, behind I Can Only Imagine, so they definitely are considering this a breakout win.

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony): $22.2M (-43%) – 3,678 theatres
2. Coyote vs. Acme (Ketchup Entertainment): $15.4M – 3,575 theatres
3. The Odyssey (Universal): $14.3M (-27%) – 2,617 theatres
4. Insidious: Out of the Further (Sony): $14.3M (-60%) – 3,303 theatres
5. The Dog Stars (Disney): $8.0M – 3,330 theatres
6. Buddy (Roadside Attractions): $5.3M – 1,258 theatres
7. The End of Oak Street (Warner Bros): $4.9M (-43%) – 2,923 theatres
8. PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie (Paramount): $4.8M (-47%) – 3,110 theatres
9. Mutiny (Lionsgate): $2.7M (-64%) – 2,703 theatres
10. Tony (A24): $2.2M (-55%) – 1,907 theatres

Source: Comscore