Weekend Box Office Report – Happy Death Day surprises as Blade Runner slumps

I think its safe to say that 2017 is the Year of Horror. And no I’m not just talking about what’s happening politically or meteorologically. Over the last 10 months we’ve seen M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, Jordan Peele’s Get Out, David Sandberg’s Annabelle: Creation and Andy Muschietti’s It draw not only rave reviews but become huge box office successes. And this weekend past, that horrific hot streak was kept alive as Happy Death Day opened atop the US box office with a very impressive $26.5 million.

Produced by Blumhouse Productions – the same guys behind Split and Get Out – the horror follows their typical approach of low-budget filmmaking having been produced for just $4.8 million. Penned by comic book writer Scott Lobdell, the film is a horror-comedy spin on Groundhog Day, following a college girl who is murdered on her birthday, only to wake up alive being forced to relive her final day over and over again until she can figure out who her killer is. Audiences have apparently loved the cool premise as they turned out in droves, allowing to film to completely exceed expectations.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite situation is happening in second place as Blade Runner 2049 (more than likely the best film 0f the year!) followed its underwhelming opening weekend by slumping even further. Director Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic dropped 54% in its second weekend for a rather meek $15.1 million take. The film is at least creeping up to $100 million internationally, which helps to soften the blow of its box office woes, but with a $150 million production budget excluding advertising costs, it’s going to take a miracle for Blade Runner 204m to break even. In

The film is at least creeping up to $100 million internationally, which helps to soften the blow of its box office woes, but with a $150 million production budget excluding advertising costs, it’s going to take a miracle for Blade Runner 204m to break even. In a way though, this is a rather fateful turn of events as the original film also crashed upon release only to really find fame and adoration years later.

Meanwhile, the Jackie Chan led thriller The Foreigner opened in third place in the US. Directed by Martin Campbell also boasts his Goldeneye star Pierce Brosnan, and international audiences have already been lapping up this team up. The Foreigner already opened in several foreign markets two weeks ago, earning $88 million in total, $66 million of which coming from Chan’s native China alone. Now opening in the US, the $35 million budgeted film can now add another $12.8 million to its global tally which has just past the $100 million mark.

With other new releases Marshall and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women opening outside of the top 10, the only other point of real interest on the charts has My Little Pony: The Movie plummeting down the rankings. With the biggest drop on the top 10 at 55%, the animated feature film dropped from fourth to ninth place.

Let’s see what the rest of the US box office chart looks like:

Last Updated: October 16, 2017