Wes Ball‘s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” finally brought some much-needed momentum to the May box office. We can almost certainly now say that the summer movie season has officially begun.
The latest ‘Apes’ movie had a domestic debut of $58.5 million and $72.7 million overseas for a global start of $131.2 million. The Sunday estimates had it at $56 million, but there a word of mouth boost on Sunday had it overperform estimates. This is a big win for 20th Century.
Meanwhile, Universal’s “The Fall Guy” continued in its struggle to put asses into seats. It’s coming off a disappointing $27.7 million opening last week. This past weekend, the Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt action flick placed second with an estimated $13.7 million, down 51% for a 10-day total of $49.7 million. Overseas, it only earned $9.4 million, placing its global tally to $103.7 million. The budget is said to have been around $150 million.
Finally, Zendaya-starrer “Challengers”, from Amazon MGM Studios, has some decent legs. It held strong at No. 3 in its third weekend, only dipping 38 percent to an estimated $4.7 million for a domestic total of $38.4 million through Sunday. It’s so far made $68.7 million globally off a $50 million budget. It’ll be made available on VOD this coming Friday.