Logan enjoys biggest opening of 2017; 5th highest R-rated debut ever
He may be old but Logan still pulls in the crowds…
After the huge success of Deadpool last year when the R-rated comic-book “risk” debuted to $132.4million, the final chapter of Fox’s Wolverine trilogy, Logan, was seen as just as risky given the relative safety in PG-13 world for the rest of the franchise that precceded it. But just like the Merc with a Mouth, Logan has exceeded expectations and become one of the biggest R-rated openers ever. (via Box Office Mojo).
Opening in 4,071 screens (the highest ever for an R-rated release, Logan score a huge $85.3million weekend in the US, the biggest of 2017 and also sits as the 5th-highest R-rated opening in history (Deadpool is still the king there). Indeed $10.1million of its opening came from IMAX screenings, and sees the film now No.2 on the R-rated IMAx openings, again behind Deadpool.
Internationally the film was strong too, with $152million grossed including $46.3million in China and $11.4million here in the UK for a worldwide opening total of $237million. Logan now stands as Fox’s 3rd highest international opening of all time behind X-Men: Days of Future Past ($172 million) and James Cameron’s Avatar with $164 million.
In 2nd place was Jordan Peele’s acclaimed thriller Get Out, which only dropped 22% from its opening with a second weekend of $26.1million to bring its domestic total to a hugely impressive $75.9million.
The week’s other notable release, The Shack, took $16.1million for No.3 of the chart – the faith-based film is now the 7th biggest opening in the sub-genre and despite its low 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, has managed to open to a decent number.
Zoey Deutch-starrer Before I Fall also opened this weekend as well but failed to find an audience and only brought in $4.9million from 2,346 cinemas.
And Best Picture winner Moonlight expanded again after its win at last week’s Academy Awards – with a weekend increase of 255%. Moving to just outside the top 10, the film which also won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) took $2.5million to bring its cume to $25.3million. Not bad for a film which cost $1.5million to make.
Next week sees the release of Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures Kong: Skull Island before Disney release their first golliath of the year, Beauty and the Beast, on March 17th.