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Box office: Hobbs & Shaw wins again with $25M; Scary Stories scares up second with $20M
The Fast & Furious franchise scored another major win this weekend with Hobbs & Shaw (the first F&F spinoff film), which added an extra $25.4 million to its domestic box office haul in its second week playing in theaters. While ticket sales for the movie dropped 58%, the action-adventure flick has managed to rake in $108 million in North America and $224 million from foreign markets.
Producer Guillermo del Toro proved that he's still a cinematic horror force to be reckoned with with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which easily nabbed the second spot at the box office with a spine-tingling $20.8 million from 3,135 domestic locations. If it keeps up this performance in the coming weeks, CBS Films will almost certainly green light a sequel, which isn't that far-fetched as the door is left wide open for a follow-up at the end of this movie.
Directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter), the film is based on the iconic children's books and illustrations by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell respectively. Set in 1968, the story—which puts a heavy emphasis on Nixon and the Vietnam War–follows a bunch of teenagers fighting against an evil book that brings tales of terror to vivid life. Thanks to its mixture of Spielbergan and del Toro-esque sensibilities, critics have looked favorably upon the movie, which they've been describing as acceptable gateway into the horror genre for younger audiences.
“The filmmakers and the team at CBS Films are thrilled that moviegoers are embracing the world of Scary Stories,” del Toro, said in a statement run by Variety. “It’s particularly satisfying to see families experiencing the fun of the movie together.”
Penned by Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia's Dan and Kevin Hageman, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark co-stars Zoe Colleti Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, and Marie Ward.
Paramount and Nickelodeon's live-action Dora the Explorer project, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, ventured its way to fourth place with $17 million in North America. Directed by James Bobin (The Muppets), the kid-friendly spin on the Indiana Jones format stars Isabela Moner as Dora, a young girl raised in the jungle who must now contend with a new savage setting: high school. She's thrust back into the wild, however, when she and her friends are kidnapped during a school trip by mercenaries looking for a fabled city made of gold.
Eva Longoria (Elena, Dora's mother), Michael Peña (Cole, Dora's father), Eugenio Derbez (Alejandro Gutierrez, a so-called friend of Dora's parents), Danny Trejo (Boots the monkey), and Benicio del Toro (Swiper the fox) co-star.
The Kitchen (while not technically genre, it is based on a DC/Vertgio comic) failed miserably with just $5.5 million from North American theaters despite three A-list leads: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss. Set in 1978 New York, the film—directed by Andrea Berloff, the title refers to Hell's Kitchen—follows three mob wives who take up their husbands' lives of crime after said spouses are sent to prison.
(via Variety)
