LOS ANGELES -- Although Warner Bros.' hit super-villain mashup Suicide Squad dominated the domestic box office for the second weekend in a row, all eyes are on the performance of Columbia's animated Sausage Party. The for-grown-ups-only picture pulled in about $34.3 million in the United States and Canada, well above analyst projections of $20 million. For a film that cost only $19 million to make, such a performance is stellar.
"It's really fun to see all that's been put into [this film] pay off in such a big way," said Rory Bruer, Columbia's distribution chief. "The filmmakers delivered something so totally fresh and innovative and off-the-wall and funny."
Sausage Party is an original computer-animated picture about talking grocery store items that realize what horrors await when humans purchase them. It stars the voices of Seth Rogen (as a hot dog) and Kristen Wiig (as a hot dog bun) as well as Salma Hayek, Edward Norton and Jonah Hill.
Columbia, which is distributing the film with Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures, projected a more conservative $15 million performance, in part because of the lack of comparable films, Bruer said.
"That was one thing that made it difficult to guestimate the opening," he said. "It is so unique and totally stands on its own."
Audiences and movie critics have taken to the R-rated comedy. Moviegoers gave it a B CinemaScore while 82 percent of the reviews on the site Rotten Tomatoes were positive.
Aiding in the film's performance was a unique marketing campaign emphasizing its off-color humor and twisted premise, similar to that of Toy Story, which the studio felt would appeal to a core audience of millennials. With a focus on digital spaces and social media, the campaign garnered an audience of mostly men (57 percent) with a 50-50 split of people over and under 25 years old.
Maintaining the top spot at the box office was Suicide Squad from Warner Bros., with about $43.5 million after opening to an August record-breaking tally of $134 million in U.S.-Canadian ticket sales the previous week. Coming in below analyst expectations of $47 million, representing a week-to-week decline of 67 percent, the film's performance could foreshadow some trouble for the studio.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which suffered from mostly negative reviews, fell nearly 70 percent from its massive $166 million first-weekend gross in March.
The $175 million Suicide Squad has grossed a domestic total of about $223 million and international total of $242.5 million to date.
Coming in third was Disney's Pete's Dragon. The animated flick opened to $21.5 million domestically, though analysts projected the film would overtake Sausage Party with more than $25 million.
"We're super, super proud of this movie," said Dave Hollis, Disney's distribution chief. "We know from recent history with family films that there is an opportunity to put together a nice run."
Pete's Dragon is the latest remake of a classic Walt Disney Co. property. The movie, with a budget of $65 million, is based on a 1977 film not considered a top-tier Disney canon entry. The original, about a child who befriends a mythical creature seen only to him, was a musical that used a hybrid of live-action filmmaking and drawn animation, in the vein of Mary Poppins.
Reviews are mainly positive for the picture, from audiences, 66 percent of which were families, and critics. Moviegoers gave it an A CinemaScore while 85 percent of critics on Rotten Tomatoes rated it positively.
Pete's Dragon has pulled in an estimated $5.1 million internationally thus far from countries including Russia, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Universal's Jason Bourne landed in fourth place in its third week with about $14 million, bringing its domestic gross to date to $127 million. The action movie, a part of a franchise from the studio, has also grossed $119.4 million internationally for a worldwide gross topping $246 million.
Rounding out the box office's top five spots is STX Entertainment's Bad Moms, with about $11.4 million in its third week. Having made $71.4 million domestically to date, the film is on pace to become the studio's first $100 million hit.
The weekend's other new release, which opened in about half as many theaters as its animated competitors, is Paramount Pictures' Florence Foster Jenkins. The film about a New York socialite and heiress who pursues a singing career despite a total lack of talent took in about $6.6 million, coming in below analysts' $8 million projection.
But the PG-13 film starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant and based on a true story, is targeted at older moviegoers who do not tend to turn up in huge crowds for a film's opening weekend. As such, the comedy-drama, the latest film by the British director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen) , is expected to do well in the weeks to come.
In limited release, CBS Films and Lionsgate opened the Chris Pine crime drama Hell or High Water in 32 theaters in order to build positive buzz for the positively reviewed movie. The picture pulled in about $621,000 for a per screen average of about $19,000.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by comScore:
Suicide Squad, Warner Bros., $43,536,013, 4,255 locations, $10,232 average, $222,640,741, two weeks.
Sausage Party, Columbia, $34,263,534, 3,103 locations, $11,042 average, $34,263,534, one week.
Pete's Dragon, Disney, $21,514,095, 3,702 locations, $5,811 average, $21,514,095, one week.
Jason Bourne, Universal, $13,846,875, 3,528 locations, $3,925 average, $127,009,220, three weeks.
Bad Moms, STX Entertainment, $11,362,783, 3,188 locations, $3,564 average, $71,374,076, three weeks.
The Secret Life of Pets, Universal, $9,064,565, 2,958 locations, $3,064 average, $336,166,640, six weeks.
Star Trek Beyond, Paramount, $6,892,793, 2,577 locations, $2,675 average, $139,772,742, four weeks.
Florence Foster Jenkins, Paramount, $6,601,313, 1,528 locations, $4,320 average, $6,601,313, one week.
Nine Lives, EuropaCorp, $3,526,166, 2,264 locations, $1,557 average, $13,576,991, two weeks.
Lights Out, Warner Bros., $3,215,446, 1,652 locations, $1,946 average, $61,130,264, four weeks.
Nerve, Lionsgate, $2,639,399, 1,777 locations, $1,485 average, $33,087,794, three weeks.
Ghostbusters, Columbia, $2,272,206, 1,437 locations, $1,581 average, $121,681,208, five weeks.
Ice Age: Collision Course, 20th Century Fox, $2,053,831, 1,548 locations, $1,327 average, $58,727,102, four weeks.
Finding Dory, Disney, $1,312,219, 631 locations, $2,080 average, $476,725,279, nine weeks.
Anthropoid, Bleecker Street, $1,233,516, 452 locations, $2,729 average, $1,233,516, one week.
Cafe Society, Lionsgate, $937,696, 455 locations, $2,061 average, $8,480,882, five weeks.
Rustom, Independent Indian, $773,612, 133 locations, $5,817 average, $773,612, one week.
Indignation, Roadside Attractions, $755,475, 267 locations, $2,829 average, $1,505,571, three weeks.
Mohenjo Daro, UTV Communications, $747,791, 246 locations, $3,040 average, $747,791, one week.
Hell or High Water, Lionsgate, $621,329, 32 locations, $19,417 average, $621,329, one week.
MovieStyle on 08/19/2016