‘King Arthur’ Bombs at Box Office as ‘Guardians’ Blasts to No. 1 Again

Warner Bros. “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and Fox/Chernin Entertainment’s “Snatched” failed to make a big splash with forecasted openings of under $20 million.

“King Arthur” finds itself in the red with an estimated $14.7 million opening against a reported $175 million production budget, not including marketing costs. The outlook hadn’t been very rosy for the Guy Ritchie-directed blockbuster to start with, as pre-weekend projections had the film’s opening bringing in the low-to-mid 20s after Warner Bros. pushed the release date to this slot from July 2016.

Weak reviews for the film knocked out any buzz the film had, as critics panned Ritchie’s direction and the decision to give King Arthur a formulaic, rags-to-riches origin tale. The film was co-financed by Village Roadshow and Ratpac Entertainment and has a 27 percent RT score and a B+ on CinemaScore.

“Snatched” fared no better as far as opening receipts go, but that’s not a major problem for the Goldie Hawn-Amy Schumer comedy, which finished second with an estimated total of $17.5 million from 3,067 locations, a total that falls into Fox’s pre-weekend projections. Still, for leading lady Schumer, it’s a disappointing result compared to her big feature film debut, 2015’s “Trainwreck,” which scored strong reviews and a $30 million opening en route to a $140 million cume against a $35 million budget.

“Snatched,” which is Hawn’s first film in 15 years, couldn’t hit the same chord with critics and audiences, scoring 38 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a B on CinemaScore. With a budget of $42 million, it’s not going to go down as a flop for Fox, but neither is likely to be a “Trainwreck”-level hit.

Meanwhile, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” had no trouble holding on to the top box office spot on the second weekend of the summer movie season, registering an estimated $63 million this weekend from 4,347 screens after a $146 million opening.

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By comparison, previous Marvel releases in May like “Iron Man 3” and “Captain America: Civil War,” posted $72 million in their second frame after openings in the $170 million range.

Though the figures for “Guardians” are smaller, its first-to-second week performance is consistent with that of those releases, keeping its drop-off to between 55 and 60 percent. That will put the domestic cume for the sequel at around $246 million and worldwide totals around $630 million.

Completing the top five are Universal’s “The Fate of the Furious,” which scored $5.3 million to take its domestic total to $215 million, and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Boss Baby,” which made $4.6 million in its seventh week to bring its total to $162 million.