Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Is Back on Top

Not since Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a film led the box office for four weekends. But last weekend (Feb. 2-4), Sony Pictures’ Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle returned to the spot for a fourth weekend with $10.93 million, moving back up after spending the previous weekend in second place.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle scored big Super Bowl weekend, earning $10.93 million to return to first place at the box office.
(Photo: Sony Pictures)

The action-adventure sequel held incredibly well over a weekend that is traditionally light on moviegoing due to the Super Bowl, falling just 32.3 percent. Jumanji is a box office darling and continues to show tremendous staying power despite being in theaters for seven weeks. Its total now stands at $352.57 million domestically, making it the third highest-grossing Sony title of all time. At its current pace, it will easily end up in second place on that list, and maybe even first, surpassing both Spider-Man 2 with $373 million and Spider-Man with $403 million. That said, it will have done so with the benefit of higher ticket prices. It is also the second highest-grossing Dwayne Johnson film of all time domestically, and it will soon surpass the top movie on that list, Furious 7, which grossed $353 million in 2015.

Slipping to second place was the previous weekend’s winner 20th Century Fox’s Maze Runner: The Death Cure with $10.47 million, a 56.7 percent fall. That is a higher drop than either of the previous entries in the YA series, which dropped 46 percent and 52 percent in their second weekends, respectively.

With $40.04 million banked so far, Maze Runner: The Death Cure’s gross is 32 percent below The Maze Runner with $57.9 million at the same point in its run and 24 percent below Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials with $51.9 million. With a reported production budget of $62 million, that isn’t a great result for the threequel domestically. That said, it has made up a lot of ground internationally, having grossed nearly three times as much overseas.

However, The Death Cure’s earnings were enough to push 20th Century Fox past Sony to become the highest-grossing studio of the year so far with $223.7 million. Sony, which had held the title all of January, now ranks second with $216.9 million. Disney is widely expected to take the crown by the end of the month with the projected blockbuster Black Panther. Fox’s success is due to a combination The Death Cure, which debuted on top the previous weekend, and the continued run of The Greatest Showman, which fell just 19.4 percent to finish in fourth place with $7.70 million, and the solid earnings of multiple Oscar nominee The Post, which took fifth place with $5.22 million – a 42.7 percent decline. The Greatest Showman has earned $137.37 million through seven weekends, a surprising total for a film that opened with only $8.8 million, while The Post has grossed $67.20 million in the same time.

Lionsgate’s horror Winchester was the top debut, with $9.32 million in third place. The Helen Mirren horror film hasn’t done well with critics or audiences. Luckily the reported budget is a mere $3.5 million.

Sixth place finisher Hostiles took in $5.11 million in its second weekend of wide release, dropping 49.5 percent after grossing $10.11 million the previous. The total for the Christian Bale Western now stands at $20.82 million, which is nearly double the $11.3 million what Bale’s last film with director Scott Cooper, 2013’s Out of the Furnace, grossed during its entire run. At a reported cost of $50 million, it has a long way to go before recouping its budget.

Seventh and eighth places went to 12 Strong and Den of Thieves, respectively, which have been performing nearly-identically since opening opposite each other two weekends ago, although Den of Thieves has been doing so on about 600 fewer screens. With another $4.71 million and $4.55 million this weekend, their totals currently stand at $37.30 million and $36.15 million, respectively.

Rounding out the top 10, The Shape of Water finished in ninth with $4.49 million after expanding to its widest screen count so far of 2,341 theaters, and Paddington 2 finished in 10th with $3.28 million. Their totals stand at $44.73 million and $39.48 million, respectively.

Several Oscar nominees finished outside the top 10 including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which finished in 11th with $3.05 million for a $41.78 million total; I, Tonya, which finished in 12th with $2.47 million and $22.55 million total; Darkest Hour, which finished in 13th with $2.36 million and $48.79 million total; Phantom Thread, which finished in 16th with $2.13 million and $14.16 million total; and Lady Bird, which finished in 20th with $1.32 million and $43.69 million total.

The top 10 films last weekend earned $65.77 million. That is 35.8 percent below the previous weekend’s $102.42 million total. It is also 13.1 percent below the $75.66 million on the same weekend last year, when Split led for the third weekend with $14.42 million. Year-to-date, the box office stands at $1.06 billion, up 0.8 percent from last year.