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‘The Upside’ Leads With $19.5 Million at Box Office, as ‘Aquaman’ Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide

STX earns its first No. 1 film, while Warner Bros. gets its first billion-dollar hit since 2012

| January 13, 2019 @ 8:02 AM
The Upside Bryan Cranston Kevin Hart

STX

STX and Warner Bros. came out as the big box office winners this weekend. STX saw its first No. 1 opening with “The Upside,” which beat tracker expectations with an estimated $19.5 million opening from 3,080 screen. It was expected to open to $10-12 million.

WB, meanwhile, won’t take their fourth straight No. 1 weekend, but “Aquaman” will still become the studio’s first $1 billion hit since “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012 and the fifth in studio history. The superhero film added $17 million this weekend to push its domestic total to $287 million.

“The Upside” was originally supposed to be an R-Rated film released last year by The Weinstein Company. But after Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct and TWC declared bankruptcy, STX reached a distribution deal last August with Lantern Entertainment, the label created out of TWC’s bankruptcy sale to Lantern Capital. The film was then re-cut for a PG-13 rating, a move that has paid off, as the film has earned an A on CinemaScore even as critics have given it just 40 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Also Read: Why Didn't 'Bumblebee' Get Box Office Buzz Despite Series' Best Reviews?

In third this weekend is Sony’s “A Dog’s Way Home,” which is opening to $11.3 million from 3,090 screens and against an $18 million production budget. By comparison, the last film adapted from a W. Bruce Cameron novel, “A Dog’s Purpose,” opened to $18 million in January 2017. “A Dog’s Way Home” has a CinemaScore rating of A- and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 59 percent.

The third new release of the weekend is Entertainment Studios’ “Replicas,” which is turning out to be the worst wide opening ever for lead star Keanu Reeves with just $2.2 million grossed from 2,329 screens. Critics and audiences alike have panned the film, giving it a C on CinemaScore and 11 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Elsewhere on the charts, holiday releases “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “Mary Poppins Returns” are both approaching $150 million domestic. “Spider-Verse” is fifth on this weekend’s charts with $7.5 million weekend total and a $146 million cume, while “Poppins” is in seventh with $6 million and a $149.4 million cume.

Also Read: 'Aquaman' Crosses $250 Million Domestic Box Office in 3rd Weekend

Meanwhile, on the awards/specialty front, Focus Features has expanded “On the Basis of Sex” to 1,923 screens, earning $6.4 million to push its total to $10.3 million. Fans of Ruth Bader Ginsburg have given the film an A on CinemaScore to go with its 70 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. Annapurna’s “If Beale Street Could Talk,” fresh off of Regina King’s Golden Globe win, expanded to 1,018 screens and added $2.3 million for a $7.7 million total.

As for the two top winners from the Golden Globes, Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” added a sing-along version of the film to theaters as the film expanded back to 1,334 screens, grossing $3 million as it inches closer to $200 million domestic after crossing $750 million this past week. Universal is holding its largest expansion for “Green Book” until after Oscar nominations, but did increase the screen count to 742 this weekend.

“Green Book” now has $38.5 million after making $2.1 million this weekend, following a week in which director Peter Farrelly apologized for sexually explicit pranks he discussed in a 1998 Newsweek interview, and screenwriter Nick Vallelonga apologized for a 2015 tweet in which he accused New Jersey Muslims of celebrating the 9/11 attacks.

Top 10 Box Office Predictions for 2019 (Photos)

  • The very first trailer for "Avengers: Endgame" is now out, and surely you all have seen it by now if you're reading this. It's not super heavy on detail, which is to be expected this far out, but there are still details we can glean about the plot of this crazy thing. So let's do dive in. 1. Tony Stark is adrift in space in the Guardians' ship All of the first minute of the trailer is spent with Tony Stark, who is adrift in space in the Milano seemingly about to run out of food and air. Tony is recording a goodbye message to Pepper Potts. It seems likely this could be the very beginning of "Avengers: Endgame," with a rescue to mirror Thanos' attack on the Asgardians in "Avengers: Infinity War." The question is: who's doing the rescuing? Could Captain Marvel show up on the stage that early in this? 2. Nebula is with him Nebula was the only other survivor from Titan, and I guess the ship that she rammed into Thanos during the big battle in "Infinity War" wasn't fit to fly after she wrecked it.Of course, if Nebula is with Tony, why wouldn't they be able to get anywhere? She would know how to fly the Milano, you would think. Hmmm. 2. Thanos is still wearing the burned up Infinity Gauntlet We get a brief look at Thanos on that planet he retired to after doing mass murder on a scale hitherto undreamt of. He's set up his armor as a scarecrow, and he's still wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. We know it's not completely broken -- we saw him use the burnt-out gauntlet to teleport out of Wakanda at the end of the battle there. But is there a reason he's still wearing it? Maybe he knows that the Avengers will need it if they wanna undo what he did? That's how it goes in the comics, anyway. 3. They know Spider-Man got dusted There's a shot in Avengers HQ with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) looking at two pictures and crying. The pictures are of Scott Lang and Peter Parker. Presumably this means the Avengers think they both got dusted. That makes sense for Scott, since he really did disappear at the time of the snap as he was in the Quantum Realm at the time. But they would have known Peter went to space with Tony Stark in pursuit of the Black Order. Of course, there's a pile of other questions this item inspires. Like: Could that scene happen after Tony is back on Earth? Do any of the other Avengers even know Spider-Man's secret identity? I guess Pepper or Happy could have told them, presuming they survived. Anyway, this is an interesting nugget, at least. 3. Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) is now Ronin 4. The surviving Avengers on Earth have a plan 5. Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) is out of the Quantum Realm Marvel Studios
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Just like 2018, Disney is going to be all over this year’s box office

2019 has just gotten started, and it's already looking like it could very well bring a box office as big as 2018. That's thanks in large part to Disney, which is sporting six -- yes, SIX -- films that could make a bid to earn over $1 billion worldwide this year. That's why the company dominates our predictions for the top 10 highest global grossing films of 2019, including the top five slots.

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