You may want to sit down for this, because there was another BIG SURPRISE at the box office: F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton topped weekend movie-going for the second week, grossing another $27 million to bring the film’s total box office to $111.5 million. So in ten days, it’s nearly quadrupled its production budget, and topped such seemingly sure-thing summer competitors as Fantastic Four, Tomorrowland, Termintor: Genisys, and Ted 2. In fact, it’s only $50 million behind Ant-Man—which has been out a month longer.
The week’s new releases didn’t fare as well. Sinister 2, projected to do around $15 million, could only manage 10; Hitman 47 stalled at $8 million. But both films outperformed American Ultra , which landed in sixth place with a projected $5.5 million—a lower opening than stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart’s Adventureland six years ago.
Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation continued to perform well, its second place finish bringing its domestic take to $157 million. And The Man From U.N.C.L.E. continues to look like a loss leader for Warner Brothers; it came in fifth for the weekend, its $26 million gross to date coming out to roughly a third of the movie’s production budget.
And the wonderful Grandma shined in limited release, with a four-theater opening bringing in a $30,250 per-screen average (the highest of the weekend, and almost double its closest competitor, the Patricia Clarkson/Ben Kingsley indie Learning to Drive).