by Conan Simmons – May 25, 2021 – 4:01 am
For the weekend of May 14-16, 2021 horror fans found happiness with the debut of ‘Spiral’, a new installment in the ongoing ‘Saw’ franchise this time starring Chris Rock. The horror film helped boost the weekend box office by a small percentage.
The new Angelina Jolie action vehicle ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ held a modest debut in third place just behind the Jason Statham action flick ‘Wrath of Man’.
Animation still holds sway with both Japan’s biggest hit ‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’ and Disney’s hit ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ rounding out the top 5.
It was also the weekend when AT&T, the parent company of WarnerMedia which owns Warner Bros., announced it was going to spin off their media assets looking to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery+. It was an announcement that sent many in Hollywood into a tizy, though here at On Genre we’ve been reporting about the problems at Warner Bros. for some time. The expected ousting of Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia., is only a matter of time. The blindsiding announcement late last year regarding day-and-date releases for the entire years film slate brought a large amount of extra debt on top of an already heavily indebted company.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (May 14-16, 2021)
- ‘Spiral’ – $8.7 million – horror (debut)
- ‘Wrath of Man’ – $3.7 million – action (drop $4.6 million, 55% decline)
- ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ – $2.8 million – action (debut)
- ‘Demon Slayer: Mugen Train’ – $1.7 million – animated (drop $1.4 million, 45% decline)
- ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ – $1.7 million – animated (drop $200k, 11% decline)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $18.6 million. It is a gain of 5% for $900k over last weekends total of $17.5 million.