Weekend box office: Don’t Breathe knocks off Suicide Squad

Brad Sturdivant August 28th, 2016

If you have even a remotely interesting horror movie, then your best bet is to release it on the last weekend of the summer, when all the studios have given up and there’s zero competition. As a non horror fan, I thought the concept of DON’T BREATHE looked pretty fascinating and it seems audiences agreed with me as the film took the top spot at the weekend box office, dethroning SUICIDE SQUAD. The other new movie of the week was THE MECHANIC: RESURRECTION with Jason Statham returning to the lead role. I can’t imagine Lionsgate was expecting much more than the $6 million it’s probably going to bring in, but just over half of what the original earned is still a little disappointing. My guess is that the film will do much better overseas and should do very well on home video.

Now that the summer is officially over, things are going to get slow at the weekend box office for a little while. Sure, we have SULLY coming out in a couple weeks, but other than that, it’s depressing. Next week is a good example since the “biggest” movie opening up is MORGAN, which might be okay, but it also has a straight-to-video vibe to it. We also have THE 9TH LIFE OF LOUIS DRAX, which stars Jamie Dornan, so I don’t think I need to say more. Predicting the box office victor next week is a challenge since this week’s number one film barely made $22 million and SUICIDE SQUAD seems to have lost its legs. I also think MORGAN is going to take some of the audience away from DON’T BREATHE, but I’m guessing not enough to knock it off the top spot. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.

1. Don’t Breathe $22.3m

2. Suicide Squad $11.6m

3. Pete’s Dragon $7.3m

4. Kubo and the Two Strings $7.2m

5. Sausage Party $7.1m

6. Mechanic: Resurrection $6.7m

7. War Dogs $6.5m

8. Bad Moms $5.6m

9. Jason Bourne $5.4m

10. Ben-Hur $4.7m

(Deadline)