by Conan Simmons – February 22, 2022 – 7:41 pm
It was a four-day weekend here in the U.S. in observance of President’s Day. Theaters were calmly active with new releases ‘Uncharted’ and ‘Dog’ bringing in the crowds. The extra day also helped box office phenom, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, make a gain over the previous weekend.
Tom Holland stars in the newly released ‘Uncharted’, an action-adventure based on the hit video game franchise from video game developer Naughty Dog. Starring as Nathan Drake, Tom Holland is joined on his globe-trotting treasure quest by Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas. ‘Uncharted’ was the big winner over the weekend digging up $51.3 million Friday thru Monday.
Channing Tatum stars and directs ‘Dog’, a comedy that did decent business coming in second with $17.4 million. The feel-good story about a military veteran traveling down the Pacific coast with a service dog to attend a funeral wisely relied on Tatum’s star power and let audiences know with blatant marketing that the dog doesn’t die, a welcome contrast to the overused staple in animal movies of the last decade or so.
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ continues to make bank in theaters giving star Tom Holland two winners at the box office. The superhero fantasy is likely to stay in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 for the next couple of weeks, at least until ‘The Batman’ starts taking away a fair portion of the audience when the caped crusader’s latest outing hits screens March 4.
Last weekend’s winner, the Agatha Christie mystery ‘Death on the Nile’, sinks down to fourth place just ahead of the shameless comedy ‘Jackass Forever’ which continues its money-making run for a third week in theaters.
Next weekend will see the release of two vastly different musicals. ‘Cyrano’, the latest adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, this time starring Peter Dinklage and directed by Joe Wright will showcase its Oscar nominated costume designs when it hits screens on wider release this coming Friday. Opposite that romantic entry is ‘Studio 666’, a horror-comedy-musical starring Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters battling demons in a haunted house-turned-recording studio. ‘Studio 666’ also features rising star Jenna Ortega, ‘American Horror Story’ fan favorite Leslie Grossman, and comedienne creator of tv’s ‘2 Broke Girls’ Whitney Cummings.
Regardless of the impact of new releases next weekend the box office is expected to be relatively calm until the next box office champ emerges March 4 when ‘The Batman’ will undoubtedly bring crowds out to theaters.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (February 18-21, 2022 – President’s Day)
- ‘Uncharted’ – $51.3 million – action-adventure (debut)
- ‘Dog’ – $17.4 million – comedy (debut)
- ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ – $9.2 million – fantasy (gain $1.7 million, 23% up)
- ‘Death on the Nile’ – $7.7 million – mystery (drop $5.2 million, 40% down)
- ‘Jackass Forever’ – $5.9 million – comedy (drop $2.2 million, 27% down)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $91.5 million. This is a gain of $51.6 million, 129% up from last weekend’s total of $39.9 million.