Originally Posted by
Box Office Mojo
It was another disappointing weekend for a pair of new sequels as both Sony's Men in Black International and WB's Shaft were both unable to reach even the slimmest of studio expectations heading into the weekend. The weekend is down significantly compared to last year when Incredibles 2 bowed with a record-shattering $182.6 million opening and next weekend will turn to Pixar once again, looking to Toy Story 4 to turn the tide.
Sony's release of Men in Black International debuted with a disappointing $28.5 million from 4,224 locations. By comparison, this is the lowest opening in the franchise by over $20 million as all three of the previous installments opened with over $51 million. The $110 million production joins a slew of recently released sequels to not only under-perform based on pre-weekend expectations, but severely under-performing based on previous films in the franchise. Entering the weekend the film received mostly negative reviews and opening day audiences gave the film a "B" CinemaScore, which is hardly a ringing endorsement. The film played to an opening weekend crowd that was 56% male with 53% of the overall audience coming in aged 25 or older.
Internationally, Men in Black brought in $73.7 million from 36 markets, giving the film a global debut over $102 million. The studio notes the film is tracking on par with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and 19% behind MIB 3 at current exchange rates for the same group of markets.
Disney's release of Fox's Dark Phoenix cratered in its second weekend, dropping a massive -72.6% for an estimated $9 million three-day and a domestic gross that now tops $51 million. This is the second largest second weekend drop for a film playing in over 3,500 theaters in its second weekend behind only 2015's Fifty Shades of Grey (-73.9%). Additionally, Dark Phoenix earned an estimated $24.2 million in its second weekend of release internationally, raising the overall overseas cume to $152.5 million for a global haul that now tops $204 million.
Finishing outside the top five we find WB's release of Shaft, which the studio was expecting to debut somewhere around $15 million, but it could only muster an estimated $8.3 million from 2,952 locations. That said, while critical response was mixed-to-negative, opening day audiences gave the film an "A" CinemaScore, though with an opening this low the film's fate is most likely sealed. Additionally, the film played to a crowd that was 54% female and 84% of the overall audience came in aged 25 years or older.