'Miss Peregrine's' Tops 'Deepwater Horizon' With $28.5 Million At the Box Office
By Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter
Tim Burton’s kid-friendly fantasy adventure Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children opened to $28.5 million from 3,522 theaters at the North American box office, blowing past Pete Berg’s oil rig disaster pic Deepwater Horizon and easily placing No. 1.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Deepwater Horizon followed at No. 2 with $20.6 million from 3,259 cinemas.
Both films did better than prerelease tracking suggested but aren’t cheap propositions.
Burton’s film, from Fox and Chernin Entertainment, cost $110 million to make. Partners Lionsgate and Participant Media allotted $156 million for Deepwater, but rebates and tax incentives brought the budget down to $110 million-$120 million.
Miss Peregrine’s marks Tim Burton’s first big-budget Hollywood studio movie since his ill-fated Dark Shadows in 2012, which debuted to $29 million in the heart of summer but cost $150 million to produce and faded fast.
The film, earning a B+ CinemaScore, is adapted from Ransom Riggs’ bestselling YA novel about a young boy (Asa Butterfield) who travels to an island in Wales and meets Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) and the orphaned children who possess magical powers. He comes to discover the realm’s ties to his own family.
Related: Box-Office Milestone: ‘Sully’ Crosses $100 Million in U.S.
Deepwater Horizon recounts the real-life oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Walhberg stars opposite Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson and Gina Rodriguez in the film, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival earlier in September.
The filmmakers are hoping that strong reviews and an A- CinemaScore will give Deepwater Horizon a long shelf theater in theaters. Overseas, where it could be a tough sell, Deepwater Horizon opened to $12.4 million from 52 markets, the majority of them smaller, according to Lionsgate. Major territories included the U.K. ($2.6 million) and Russia ($1.2 million). That puts the film’s global launch at $33 million.
Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven fell to No. 3 in its second outing after topping the chart last weekend. The Western, from MGM and Sony, declined 55 percent to an estimated $15.5 million for a domestic cume through Sunday of $61.4 million.
Storks and box-office hit Sully rounded out the top five with $13.8 million and $8.4 million, respectively. That puts the 10-day domestic total for Storks, an animated offering form Warner Bros., at $38.8 million, while Sully jumped the $100 million mark in its fourth weekend.
Internationally, Storks took in another $14.6 million internationally for a foreign total of $38.8 million and worldwide total of $77.6 million. However, the family film bombed in China with $1.9 million.
New comedy Masterminds only managed a sixth-place finish with a dismal $6 million from 3,042 locations despite a star-studded cast led by Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudekis. The movie is the first major release from Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity since the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Disney’s chess drama Queen of Katwe is likewise struggling despite nabbing an A+ CinemaScore. After opening in select theaters last weekend, the movie upped its theater count to 1,242 locations, earning roughly $3 million. Queen of Katwe, directed by Mira Nair, stars Lupita Nyong'o, Madina Nalwanga and David Oyelowo.
Related: 'Deepwater Horizon’ Trailer: Mark Wahlberg Is up Against a Man-Made Disaster
At the specialty box office, Mick Jackson’s Denial, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson and Timothy Sall, opened in five theaters, grossed $102,101 for a solid theater average of $20,420. Bleecker Street is distributing the film in the U.S. Denial, like Deepwater Horizon and Queen of Katwe, played at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival last month.
