Angel Has Fallen Box Office: Gerard Butler Is Number One Again With No New Competition

This weekend marks our entrance into the final third of 2019, but Hollywood didn’t exactly celebrate the occasion. With a large portion of the movie-going audience distracted by back to school happenings and end-of-summer vacations, the industry recognized that not a lot of people were going to be going to their local cineplex this weekend, so the only new title in semi-wide release was Jacob Estes’ Don’t Let Go… which finished in 14th place having only made $2.4 million. This left the Top 10 to basically be a mixed up rehash of last time around (with an extra dose of Jon Watts’ Spider-Man courtesy of Far From Home‘s Labor Day Weekend re-release), and once again Ric Roman Waugh’s Angel Has Fallen is the top feature in the country.

Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!

It’s pretty rare in the modern age for a significant studio release to face almost zero new competition in its second weekend, but that’s the environment that Angel Has Fallen found itself in this weekend, and there’s no arguing that it didn’t help. After a surprising $20 million-plus start, the Gerard Butler-starring sequel only fell off about 46 percent when you compare Friday-to-Sunday stretches, and that’s honestly a big deal during a year in which a number of high profile titles have seen that same statistic stand closer to 60 percent.

It’s not a movie that is on track to become one of the biggest hits of the year, and the reality is that thus far it’s only made $3.6 million more than its reported budget before marketing and publicity, but it’s still succeeding in earning an “August hit” label. It wasn’t exactly given a warm reception by critics, with it currently hosting a 39 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it also has an “A-” CinemaScore, and with no other new options available people seem to be taking a chance on Angel Has Fallen.

Of course, the reign at the top of the box office will be short-lived, particularly given the absolutely massive film that is about to hit theaters everywhere on Friday (more on that in a minute). It could stick around for a bit on the charts, given that September isn’t exactly overflowing with heaps of new releases, but this weekend will definitely mark its end in the spotlight.

While Angel Has Fallen did a solid job taking advantage of the slow week, the same can’t really be argued for Spider-Man: Far From Home, which only barely managed to scrape its way back into the Top 10 with $5.4 million being added to its domestic total. The blockbuster was certainly brought back to theaters in an interesting way, re-edited with an extra four minutes of footage, but ultimately it couldn’t even match the numbers put up by Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Endgame when it did its big expansion in late June. Really, all the comparisons make it look bad: the Marvel Cinematic Universe capstone film was only playing in 2,025 theaters at the time, but still managed to make $6.1 million and climb from 13th place to seventh. Spider-Man: Far From Home moved up the same number of spots in the ranking, but still managed to make less money while playing in more theaters (3,162 to be exact).

I’ll also give special recognition to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Ready Or Not, which wasn’t looking so great last we looked at it. Despite earning rave reviews and staking a claim as Fox Searchlight’s widest-released film ever, the horror comedy only managed to make $7.6 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday, but word of mouth now seems to be potentially working in its favor. In addition to not budging from its sixth place position, the numbers only dipped about 17 percent. This now leaves the release with a total gross of $20.5 million domestically, which looks pretty good when you consider it was made for only $6 million.

This was clearly a slow weekend for the film industry, but things should change in a massive way starting this Friday thanks to the forthcoming arrival of Andy Muschietti’s IT: Chapter 2. It was around this time two years ago that the sequel’s predecessor absolutely shattered records for both horror genre and R-rated releases, and anticipation is through the roof to see how the second half of the story plays out. Will it be able to make more money during its opening weekend than the last adventure? Be sure to come back to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how everything shakes out!