Neither a hyper intelligent robot nor Vince Vaughn could save the North American box office this weekend, which is down 38.5 per cent from the same weekend last year according to Sunday estimates from box office firm Rentrak.
While Neill Blomkamp’s R-rated Chappie might have taken the No. 1 spot in its 3,201 theatre debut, its modest $13.3 million gross is hardly anything to celebrate.
It’s a career low for Blomkamp, whose previous films Elysium and District 9 debuted at $29.8 and $37.4 million (Dh48.8 million), respectively.
Distributor Sony remains optimistic about its $49 million film starring Hugh Jackman about a police robot (voiced by Sharlto Copley) who learns how to think and feel.
“It certainly opened in our realm of expectations for it for the weekend,” said Rory Bruer, Sony’s President of Worldwide Distribution. He noted that the 60 per cent male and 57 per cent under-30 demographic breakdown was good for the film.
Sony and its subsidiaries have released all three of Blomkamp’s films.
“I certainly believe, like Neill’s other movies, that it’s going to have a really strong multiple and we’re going to come out fine on the movie,” Bruer said.
The R-rated Vince Vaughn comedy Unfinished Business fared even worse, opening at No. 10 to a dismal $4.8 million. The $35 million film about a chaotic European business trip also stars Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson.
In its second weekend in cinemas, Will Smith’s Focus fell an estimated 46 per cent to take second place with $10 million, bringing its US total to $34.6 million.
