It was a much more exciting weekend at the Box Office than the one prior. Instead of watching Fantastic Four flounder and gasp for air, moviegoers were treated with some new movies they wanted to see.
With a weekend that saw two big new releases, one of them dominated the box office. Straight Outta Compton hauled in an impressive $56.1 million dollars, powering past recent rap themed movies like Eminem’s 8 Mile ($51.2 million in 2002) and Notorious, the story of Notorious B.I.G. ($20.5 million in 2009).
Straight Outta Compton’s success is huge for Universal. Previously, in 2009, Warner Bros achieved the speed record by hitting $2 billion in box office earnings domestically by Christmas. Thanks to Straight Outta Compton and Universal’s other hits this year, including Jurassic World, Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey, and Minions, the studio has shattered that record by achieving $2 billion domestically by the second weekend in August. And to think, they’ve done this entirely superhero free.
Also out this weekend was Guy Ritchie’s Man From U.N.C.L.E., which debuted at #3 with only a $13.5 million haul. The movie had last seemed like it could do better than this, although Compton was the clear favorite going into the weekend, but it couldn’t even overpower Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation which took 2nd with another $17 million dollars moving it’s domestic total to $138 million in just three weekends.
Behind those three, Fantastic Four remained in theaters (barely) with another $8 million, The Gift rounded out the top five with $6.5 million, and Ant-Man and Vacation finished right outside the top five, with $5.5 million and $5.3 million respectively.
This weekend saw some big movie news not related to the box office numbers. Disney continues to march Star Wars ahead with the announcement that Colin Trevorrow is set to direct Star Wars: Episode IX. Although production isn’t set to begin for a while, Trevorrow is setup to start collaborating with his fellow Star Wars directors and will spend plenty of time this winter working with pre-production.
Trevorrow’s Jurassic World success setup him taking on another franchise resurging but I am still somewhat confused by not giving the core trilogy (Episodes VII, VIII, and IX) to one director.
Star Wars news continued out of D23 with the cast and plot revealed for Star Wars: Rogue One. “Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope and will be a departure from the saga films but have elements that are familiar to the Star Wars universe,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said, “It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know. Gareth is such an innovative director and I’m so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he’s selected for Rogue One.”
It was also shared that previously announced cast members, Felicity Jones and Diego Luna, would be joined by Bloodline’s Ben Mendelsohn, Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen, Firefly’s Alan Tudyk, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yi, Nightcrawler’s Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, and Forest Whitaker. What a team.
Finally, also out of Disney’s D23 this weekend, was updates on Captain America: Civil War. Some footage was shared that showed the tension rising amongst the Avengers. A full breakdown can be found on JoBlo.
