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 The rap drama topped charts for the second weekend in a row,
picking up $26.8 million from 3,025 locations and propelling its
domestic haul to $111.5 million. That's a tidy return on the $29
million that Universal and Legendary spent making the film about
the early days of N.W.A. "Straight Outta Compton" that hasn't
been without controversy. The film has been slammed for glossing
over its members treatment of women and the blowback forced Dr.
Dre to apologize for his actions. Negative headlines do not
appear to be taking a toll on its ticket sales.
Of the new films hitting multiplexes, "Sinister 2" performed the
best of an inert bunch. The low-budget horror sequel nabbed
$10.6 million from 2,766 locations for a third place finish.
That's less than the $14 million to $16 million that Focus
Features, the studio behind the film, had been expecting to pull
in, and it also trails the first "Sinister's" $18 million
opening. The good news is that "Sinister 2" cost less than $10
million to make, limiting the studio's financial exposure.
Fox's "Hitman: Agent 47," a second attempt to transform a
popular video game series into a successful film one, hit a
speed bump, earning a meager $8.2 million across 3,261
locations. It had been expected to generate $11 million in
receipts. Swapping "Justified's" Timothy Olyphant for
"Homeland's" Rupert Friend as the titular assassin didn't
provide much sizzle, as the latest "Hitman" failed to match the
$13.1 million opening of its 2007 predecessor. "Hitman: Agent
47" cost $35 to bring to the screen.
That left Lionsgate's "American Ultra" as the lowest performing
of the newbies. The marijuana-encrusted secret agent film went
up in smoke, grabbing $5.5 million from 2,778 locations, and
securing sixth place. The film centers on a stoner (Jesse
Eisenberg) who discovers he is really a slightly crisped version
of Jason Bourne. It reunites Eisenberg with Kristen Stewart, his
co-star from 2009's "Adventureland."
All three films carried R-ratings and catered to adult crowds,
something that may have depressed their results.
"At the end of the day, they cannibalized each other," said
Chris Aronson, Fox's distribution chief. "It's an unfortunate
confluence of events. All three of those films combined would
have made a decent opening for any one of them."
Among holdovers, Paramount's "Mission: Impossible - Rogue
Nation" had a second place finish with $11.7 million. The fifth
film in the spy series has earned $157.8 million stateside.
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"The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," an attempt to revive a television show
few remembered, earned $7.4 million in its second weekend, edging
out "American Ultra" for fifth place. The action film has earned
$26.6 million domestically thus far, signaling it will have trouble
recouping its $75 million production budget barring a surge in pop
culture nostalgia among foreign crowds.
In the art house world, Sony Pictures Classics scored a solid debut
for "Grandma." The comedy about a grandmother helping her
granddaughter find the money to pay for an abortion, has earned rave
reviews for its star Lily Tomlin, and picked up $120,856 on four
screens, for per screen average of $30,214.
The Orchard fielded Joe Swanberg's off-beat mystery "Digging for
Fire" on-demand and on three screens where it earned an estimated
$24,544.
Broad Green, the newly created distribution company from brothers
Gabriel Hammond and Daniel Hammond, launched its first in-house
production with "Learning to Drive." The comedy is pitched at older
crowds and stars Sir Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson. It grossed
$67,417 from four locations for a per-screen average of $16,854.
The company was particularly pleased that the film picked up steam
as the weekend rolled on, indicating that word-of-mouth is strong.
It will expand to four additional markets next weekend.
"We always saw the first three weeks as basically a series of
previews," said Travis Reid, Broad Green's president of
distribution. "We knew the movie needed to get established, because
it's a film that audiences really, really respond to."
And "Trainwreck" checked an important milestone off its list, as its
$2.5 million weekend gross pushed the comedy past the $100 million
mark after six weeks in theaters.
Overall ticket sales were down roughly 7 percent from the year-ago
period when "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles" were still drawing healthy crowds.
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