The Weekend Report

Ready Player One led the Easter parade with an estimated $53.6 million. There was good news for the session’s other national opener, Tyler Perry’s Tyler Perry-free revenge thriller Acrimony, which bowed at $17.1 million. The third new release God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness failed to inspire with a $2.6 million start for a waning franchise.

New titles in international day-and-dates included a potent start for Telugu Rangasthalam at $1.8 million and a solid beginning of $592,000 for Hindi Baaghi 2. In Hawaii, locally-made Kuleana grossed $32,300 from eight venues. Exclusive freshmen failed to provide thunderbolts, although L.A. neo-noir Gemini had an encouraging $36,400 box office at four dives.

Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s best-selling virtual reality-set novel, recalls Raiders of the Lost Ark with younger protagonists. Still industry tracking reflected some reticence with predictions of a $35-$40 million opening for its four-day. It also opened in 62 alternate realities to an estimated $128 million led by an estimated $61.7 million gross in China. Other top markets included South Korea with $8.1 million, the UK grossing $7.3 million and Russia providing a $6.1 million box office. As with last weekend’s performance of Pacific Rim Uprising, Ready reflected a tidal shift between domestic and international returns.

Revenues for the holiday period approached $140 million and inched 6% ahead of last weekend’s performance. It was conversely a 19% decline from 2017 when the debut of Boss Baby led with a $50.2 million tally and newcomer Ghost in the Shell ranked third with $18.7 million.

The Tyler Perry machine was underestimated, with the opening potency of Acrimony with top-end predictions of $15 million. Perry has never made more than the most minuscule expansion into a wider, mainstream audience. Acrimony proved an effective counterprogrammer with a crowd was 74% female and 85% 25 and older. African Americans accounted for 60% of viewers, significantly lower than the majority of his output.

While the media has been shining the light on faith-based movies the only recent release that managed to cross over to a wider audience is I Can Only Imagine. Ironically the 2014 God’s Not Dead also fit into that category but its subsequent follow ups — including A Light in Darkness — along with the recent Samson and Paul, Apostle of Christ have played to the faithful.

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