Ben-Hur stalls right out of gate

Jay Hernandez stars as Diablo in the Warner Bros. action adventure film Suicide Squad. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $21 million in its third week.
Jay Hernandez stars as Diablo in the Warner Bros. action adventure film Suicide Squad. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $21 million in its third week.

LOS ANGELES -- The big-budget reimagining of Ben-Hur crashed and burned at the box office, weighing in as one of the biggest flops of the summer during a weekend in which holdovers Suicide Squad and Sausage Party maintained their top spots.

The third movie version of Lew Wallace's 19th-century novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, from Paramount Pictures and MGM, took in only $11.2 million in U.S and Canadian theaters, which was only good enough for sixth place. Such a performance is an unequivocal poor result for a movie that cost about $100 million to make (after rebates). The film brought in $10.7 million internationally.

Jack Huston stars as Judah Ben-Hur in the film, which also features Toby Kebbell as his adopted brother and nemesis Messala, and Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus.

Critics weren't impressed, giving the film a lowly 29 percent favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The failure of Ben-Hur is another headache for Paramount, which is dealing with a mostly lackluster year at the box office. The Los Angeles-based, Viacom Inc.-owned company is ranked No. 5 out of the six major studios in terms of domestic box-office market share this year, ahead of Columbia Pictures.

Big-budget flops are no longer uncommon in Hollywood. What is unusual is the patience that Paramount's corporate owner has afforded the studio. In addition to Ben-Hur, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Zoolander 2 failed to find audiences for Paramount.

Star Trek Beyond has been a hit, but domestic ticket sales for that film trail its series predecessor by 36 percent. (The film is still rolling out in major markets overseas.) On Aug. 19, as Viacom ousted its chief executive, a media analyst, Michael Nathanson, called Paramount a "truly shocking" problem, noting in a report that the studio may lose $350 million this year.

The superhero epic Suicide Squad from Warner Bros. added about $21 million in its third week, landing in first place. Its domestic total to date is about $262 million.

Sausage Party, Seth Rogen's foul-mouthed-food animated comedy, continued to do well for Columbia Pictures. The R-rated film pulled in about $15.5 million. With just a 55 percent week-to-week drop, the $19 million animated film has grossed about $65.5 million to date.

Of the new releases, Warner Bros.' War Dogs performed best, nabbing the No. 3 spot with about $14.7 million. It met analyst projections of $12 million to $15 million, a respectable start for a film that cost less than $50 million to make.

Based on a true story, War Dogs stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as a pair of 20-something American hotshots who score a lucrative Pentagon contract to run guns for U.S. allies in Afghanistan.

Kubo and the Two Strings, the latest from stop-motion animation studio Laika Entertainment, landed in fourth with $12.6 million, barely meeting analyst expectations of $12 million to $15 million. Focus Features is releasing the picture for Laika, which is known for quirky family offerings such as Coraline and The Boxtrolls.

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:

  1. Suicide Squad, Warner Bros., $20,855,401, 3,924 locations, $5,315 average, $262,428,736, three weeks.

  2. Sausage Party, Columbia, $15,485,577, 3,103 locations, $4,991 average, $65,486,596, two weeks.

  3. War Dogs, Warner Bros., $14,685,305, 3,258 locations, $4,507 average, $14,685,305, one week.

  4. Kubo and the Two Strings, Focus Features, $12,608,372, 3,260 locations, $3,868 average, $12,608,372, one week.

  5. Pete's Dragon, Disney, $11,349,938, 3,702 locations, $3,066 average, $42,911,207, two weeks.

  6. Ben-Hur, Paramount, $11,203,815, 3,084 locations, $3,633 average, $11,203,815, one week.

  7. Jason Bourne, Universal, $8,016,895, 2,887 locations, $2,777 average, $140,920,180, four weeks.

  8. Bad Moms, STX Entertainment, $7,946,885, 2,811 locations, $2,827 average, $85,679,313, four weeks.

  9. Secret Life of Pets, Universal, $5,880,500, 2,404 locations, $2,446 average, $346,832,530, seven weeks.

  10. Florence Foster Jenkins, Paramount, $4,384,511, 1,528 locations, $2,869 average, $14,490,254, two weeks.

  11. Star Trek Beyond, Paramount, $3,946,356, 1,966 locations, $2,007 average, $146,877,726, five weeks.

  12. Hell or High Water, Lionsgate, $2,692,811, 472 locations, $5,705 average, $3,570,498, two weeks.

  13. Lights Out, Warner Bros., $1,601,441, 942 locations, $1,700 average, $64,221,817, five weeks.

  14. Nine Lives, EuropaCorp, $1,402,557, 1,364 locations, $1,028 average, $17,056,581, three weeks.

  15. Nerve, Lionsgate, $1,191,949, 859 locations, $1,388 average, $35,795,014, four weeks.

  16. Ghostbusters, Columbia, $1,072,638, 788 locations, $1,361 average, $123,933,072, six weeks.

  17. Finding Dory, Disney, $907,012, 450 locations, $2,016 average, $478,436,176, 10 weeks.

  18. Ice Age: Collision Course, 20th Century Fox, $905,479, 782 locations, $1,158 average, $60,833,769, five weeks.

  19. Anthropoid, Bleecker Street, $560,489, 441 locations, $1,271 average, $2,345,025, two weeks.

  20. Indignation, Roadside Attractions, $519,413, 317 locations, $1,639 average, $2,336,917, four weeks.

MovieStyle on 08/26/2016

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