‘Boo! 2’ Wins Gruesome Box Office Weekend With $21 Million Opening

Aside from the latest Madea film, box office results were nothing but duds this weekend

Boo 2
Chip Bergman/Lionsgate

The October slump continues for the box office this weekend, as Lionsgate’s “Boo! 2: A Madea Halloween” proved to be the only wide release this weekend to earn a successful opening.

The ninth installment of Tyler Perry’s “Madea” series, which cost $20 million to make, made $21.6 million from 2,388 screens, hitting the $20-22 million range set by trackers before the weekend. By comparison, the first “Boo!” made $28 million in its opening last year.

The film was panned by critics with an 8 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, but for Tyler Perry, who has earned a cult following with his low-budget films, that’s hardly a concern. Older female audiences were the main demographic, with CinemaScore reporting 65 percent female and 65 percent over the age of 25 among the audience that gave the film an A- grade. ComScore’s PostTrak reported that 38 percent of audiences were African-American, with 31 percent Caucasian and 21 percent Hispanic.

Below “Boo! 2,” it’s mostly bad news. In second place this weekend is Warner Bros./Skydance’s “Geostorm,” a $120 million disaster film that only made $13.3 million from 3,246 theaters. The moviegoers that did show up to see this film were mixed with a B- on CinemaScore, but critics panned the film with a 13 percent RT rating. “Geostorm” joins “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” as WB’s second big flop of 2017, and breaks a streak of successful releases that began with “Wonder Woman” back in June and continued through September with “It.”

“Happy Death Day” takes third this weekend with $9.3 million, taking a steep 64 percent drop from its $26 million opening last weekend. “Blade Runner 2049” is in fourth with $7.1 million, bringing its total to $74 million after three weekends in theaters.

Completing the top five is Columbia/Black Label Media’s “Only The Brave,” which has won critics and audiences over with a 90 percent RT score and a straight A on CinemaScore, but has severely underperformed with a $6 million start from 2,577 screens against a $35 million budget, with Black Label producing and Columbia handling distribution. On the other end of the critical spectrum is Universal’s “The Snowman,” which received a brutal 9 percent RT score and a D on CinemaScore, and will finish outside the top five with $3.4 million from 1,812 screens against a $35 million budget.

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