‘Crazy Rich Asians’ becomes summer’s 10th-biggest domestic grosser

• Posted on September 11, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

In box office news for the weekend that isn’t The Nun or Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Constance Wu and Henry Golding’s Crazy Rich Asians continued to pull strong business in its fourth weekend of release.

The Jon M. Chu-directed romantic comedy earned another $13.86 million (-38%) for a $136.222m 26-day total. Yes, that’s a sharper drop than the last two weekends, but 38% is fine by any rational standard and Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.’s The Nun overperformed this weekend.

The film is slowly expanding overseas and has now earned $164.7 million worldwide. So, yeah, it doesn’t remotely need China whether it ends up playing there or not. It passed The Meg to become the summer’s tenth-biggest domestic grosser.

Boy, I’m sure the folks who released The Meg are bummed about that. Oh, and with a total above The Silver Linings Playbook ($132m in 2012/2013), Crazy Rich Asians is the highest-grossing romantic comedy (in unadjusted domestic earnings) in nine years.

Speaking of which, The Meg earned another $6.042 million (-43%) in its fifth weekend.  The Jason Statham shark adventure has now earned $131.5m in North America along with a whopping $492m worldwide. It should pass the $500m mark sometime next weekend. If we don’t get The Trench in a couple of years, presumably on a double-bill with China Rich Girlfriend, I’d be very surprised.

Sony and Screen Gems expanded the dynamite Searching to 2,009 theaters in its third weekend of release. The John Cho thriller earned $4.515 million (-25%) weekend for a $14.311m 17-day cume. Yes, the hold was mostly due to the expansion, but I’ll take what I can get. The Aneesh Chaganty-directed thriller should make it past $20m domestic by the time it’s done, and it has already earned $17.7m overseas. So yeah, it’s a solid hit.

MGM’s Operation Finale earned $3.043 million (-49%) in its second weekend for a $14.1m 12-day total. Focus Features’ BlacKkKlansman earned another $2.565m (-39%) over the weekend for a superb $43.45m domestic and $65m worldwide cume. This one is performing better than I could have hoped in our current theatrical marketplace, and it won’t even need Oscar love to get past $50m domestic. Alpha will earn $2.125m (-53%) in weekend four for a $32m 24-day cume.

In other odds and ends, Eighth Grade is just below $13 million domestic while Three Identical Strangers sits just below $12m. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom now has $415m domestic and $1.3 billion worldwide, while Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again has earned $376m worldwide on a $75m budget. The Equalizer 2 has earned $173.5m worldwide thus far while Hotel Transylvania 3 has $496m on an $80m budget. And, last but not least, Ant-Man and the Wasp now has $610m worldwide and Incredibles 2 has earned $604m domestic and $1.176b worldwide.

Source: Forbes