Weekend Box Office: The Death Of Madea Gives Life To Tyler Perry, While ‘Greta’ Is DOA

It’s a close race at the box office the weekend before Marvel’s Captain Marvel comes in and blows up the box office. In fact, it’s much closer than anyone might have anticipated, as Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral made a run for first place, coming up just short and losing to the second weekend of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. After a stellar first weekend, the DreamWorks animated pic’s fell around 50 percent in its second to $30 million. After ten days, it is already closing in on the $100 million mark with $97 million, plus more than $200 million overseas, so far.

The surprise this weekend, however, was A Madea Family Funeral and its $27.05 million haul. Tyler Perry had hit a small slump with his last two films (Nobody’s Fool with a $13 million opening and Acrimony with a $17 million opening), but the Madea films always perform well, and for some reason, box-office pundits are always surprised by how well they do. In fact, $20 million was at the high end of expectations for A Family Funeral, so it makes perfect sense that Madea’s final bow would continue to defy expectations. In fact, this is the fourth highest debut for a Madea film. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of these movies, but I have to give it up to Perry for earning over half a billion dollars with the nine Madea entries. Clearly, Madea has an audience, and that audience has been passionate about the character since the beginning, 15 years ago.

The news wasn’t so great for the weekend’s other new entry, the horror film Greta. Isabelle Huppert’s strong performance notwithstanding, the reviews were mixed (58 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), but the audience reception to the film has been downright dismal. Postrak exits gave it only two stars and 34 percent definite recommend (compare that to the 67 percent recommend for Madea). The film will end the weekend in fifth place with only $4.5 million, and it’s likely to be forgotten soon thereafter.

The rest of the top ten is comprised of holdovers. Alita: Battle Angel still isn’t doing much stateside, adding $6.7 million to bring its three-week total to $72 million on a $170 million price tag. China, however, is helping to bail Fox out on this one. It earned $64 million last weekend in the Middle Kingdom and has now earned $222 million overseas, so profitability is not totally out of the question for the film. A sequel, however, probably is not in the equation.

Lego Movie 2: The Second Part also continues to limp compared to its predecessor. It earned $5.8 million to bring its four-week total to $90 million. Not only is the $257 million earned by The Lego Movie out of the question, but so is the $175 million put up by The Lego Batman Movie. Foreign totals are of no help, either, as it has only earned $52 million overseas. If you look at the whole picture, the box-office bomb Alita is actually doing considerably better than what should have been a sure thing in The Lego Movie 2.

After winning Best Picture, Green Book got a hefty boost, adding 1,300 theaters and more than doubling last-week’s receipts, earning $4.5 million to bring its total to $75 million. That’s only $625 million short of another Best Picture nominee, Black Panther. Isn’t It Romantic continues to do about what was expected of it, earning $4.3 million in its third weekend to bring its overall total to $40 million. Dwayne Johnson’s Fighting with My Family is not doing particularly well in America, earning $4.1 million to bring its two-week total to $14.1 million. Then again, it only cost $11 million to produce. Moreover, it was the number one film in the UK this weekend, earning $2.64 million.

What Men Want and Happy Death Day 2U close out the top ten, earning $2.6 million and $2.4 million, respectively, and $49 million and $25 million overall. Both films represent hits for their studios based on their budgets ($20 million and $9 million).

Next week, Captain Marvel is expected to blow everything out the water. The question is whether it can earn more in its opening weekend than Wonder Woman ($103 million), Spider-Man: Homecoming ($117 million) or if it can earn even more Most predictions peg it at around $120 million, but I think it’s more likely to reach $150 million.

Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo