Box-Office Weekend: Steven Spielberg Tops Box Office with Ready Player One

Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Ready Player One, arrived in a big way, topping the box-office weekend with a $41.2 million take (and a $53.2 million opening overall). This marks the best opening that a Spielberg movie has enjoyed since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did back in 2008.

Finishing in a very distant second place was Tyler Perry’s Acrimony, which, like Ready Player One, opened this week, but with $17.1 million and not the numbers akin to blockbuster status. Black Panther again did decent business, adding another $11.3 million to bring its seven-week domestic total to $650.7 million.

Falling from third to fourth, an expected fall given the arrival of the new Spielberg film, I Can Only Imagine brought its three-week total to $55.6 million adding $10.8 million over the weekend. In its second week of release, Pacific Rim: Uprising succumbed to a sharp decline in ticket sales, plummeting from $41.2 million last week to $9.2 million this weekend. This gives the erstwhile monster mash-up sequel a two-week total of $45.7 million, which suggests it might not have a long stay in the top ten as it languishes this week in fifth place.

The animated film Sherlock Gnomes did the exact same business this weekend as it did last weekend, landing $7 million to bring its two-week cumulative total to $22.8 million. Meanwhile, Love, Simon took in $4.8 million this weekend, keeping it in the seventh spot (despite earning $3 million less than last weekend). Tomb Raider dropped from the fifth to the eighth spot this week with $4.7 million to give it a three-week tally of $50.5 million. The Madeleine L’Engle adaptation, A Wrinkle in Time brought its four-week total to $83.3 million with $4.7 million over the weekend, which landed it in ninth place, just behind Tomb Raider.

Finally, the faith-based motion-picture Paul, Apostle of Christ added $3.5 million this weekend to bring its two-week total to $11.5 million. Next weekend sees another batch of new releases that will undoubtedly shuffle the box-office weekend yet again as Universal’s Blockers, Paramount’s A Quiet Place, and Entertainment Studios’ Chappaquiddick are all scheduled to debut.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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