Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings holds up very well for a comic book movie, while Malignant's box office lives up to its title.
During the summer, movies dropping by 2/3rds or more in their second weekends became almost routine. This seemed like a scary new normal for Hollywood where movies were falling off faster than ever and weren't even getting the big opening weekend box office to somewhat make up for that. However, as the calendar turned to August, an odd thing started to happen--movies started having relatively normal dropoffs again. Jungle Cruise, Candyman, Don't Breathe 2, and especially Free Guy actually developed legs. That all four movies were generally well received by audiences didn't hurt much, either.
That brings us to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which, as opposed to Black Widow's 67% second-weekend tumble, only fell about 54% from last weekend's Labor Day-fueled opening. It took in $34.7 million in its second weekend, bringing its ten-day total to $144.5 million. That's both the best second weekend gross and best ten-day total since before the pandemic. There's little reason to think that Shang-Chi, which is already up to fourth on the highest-grossing movies of 2021, won't not only eventually pass Widow for the top spot, but it will be the first movie since Bad Boys For Life to top $200 million domestically.
In a rather distant second, the aforementioned Free Guy continues to perform at a steady pace, earning $5.6 million to raise its total to $101.6 million, becoming the sixth movie of the year to pass the century mark. If weekly falls continue to be relatively small, it could top out at around $120 million.
James Wan gifted Warner Bros. with the first two Conjuring movies and Aquaman. His reward was getting to write and direct the relatively low-budgeted horror-thriller Malignant, which comes complete with a crazy twist that everyone who saw it couldn't stop talking about. For whatever reason, however, Warners dropped the ball on promotion, so Malignant could only muster up a third-place opening of $5.4 million, or only about a fourth of what the more hyped Candyman opened to just two weeks ago. Perhaps word-of-mouth will help, but WB hasn't gotten any long-term traction on any of its 2021 releases, most likely thanks to the HBO Max debacle, and there's no reason to think Malignant will be different. This is likely going to top out only a bit over $10 million.
A sign of just how weak Malignant was was that it didn't even make a million more than the third weekend of the aforementioned Candyman, which took in $4.8 million for a total of $48 million. Jungle Cruise rounded out the Top 5, earning $2.3 million for a total of $109.8 million.
Paw Patrol: The Movie and Don't Breathe 2 continued their moderately successful runs in sixth and seventh, respectively. Paw Patrol grossed $2.3 million for a total of $34.7 million and Don't Breath took in $1.2 million for $30.3 million.
Opening in 8th was the acclaimed drama The Card Counter, with Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish. It brought in just over $1 million. Opening in 9th, with roughly $0.7 million, was the Christian documentary Show Me the Father. Respect rounded out the Top 10, with a total gross of $23.2 million.
While Shang-Chi stands a good chance to threepeat this weekend, two new movies arrive to challenge the Marvel hit for its title. 91-year-old Clint Eastwood might very well be the oldest actor to star in a major studio movie, might very well be the oldest director of a major studio movie, and is almost certainly the oldest to do both in the same film, specifically Cry Macho, where he plays an aging cowboy sent to accompany a teenage boy from Mexico to the United States. Meanwhile, Copshop is a violent shoot-em-up set at a police station, where a pair of hitmen (Gerard Butler and Toby Huss) try to take down a con man (Frank Grillo) while a surviving cop (Alexis Louder) tries to survive. Also opening, and possibly making the lower rungs of the Top 10, are the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye with Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield, and the immigrant drama Blue Bayou, starring Justin Chon and Alicia Vikander. We'll find out who wins next week.
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