On a weekend in which there was little to no new competition at the box office, a cuddly monster was able to climb its way to the top of the charts, right past the dapper Brits of Downton Abbey, who presumably said, “Right then, well done, on you go” while sipping tea and thinking up a witticism to be delivered with an arched eyebrow when next the two films meet again.
Abominable, the most entertaining of the three yeti-based animated films to be released in the past year, claimed the top spot with a mild $20.85 million. If that seems like an underwhelming figure for the number-one film in America, consider that the Dreamworks Animation title’s performance is actually the largest opening for an original animated feature in 2019, as well as only the third original movie (along with Us and Good Boys) to top the box office this year. Of course, with a $75 million budget, Abominable needs to step on a few more cinematic houses to make its way to profitability—but receiving an A Cinemascore and strong word of mouth might help.
Second place went to Downton Abbey with $14.5 million in its second week, not too shabby for a genre usually relegated to a couple hundred arthouse screens. Third place was claimed by Hustlers, which continues to hustle its way to success by only dropping 32% in its third week in theaters and bringing in $11.42 million, well on its way to breaking the $100 million mark. It Chapter Two is also scaring up plenty of cash in its fourth week, earning $10.4 million and demonstrating that no one ever went broke predicting coulrophobia as the default setting of most Americans. And rounding out the top five is Ad Astra, which managed to earn another $10.1 million despite being one of those films where people walked out thinking, “Huh, the commercials really didn’t prep me for seeing a film which The A.V. Club’s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky said was filled with ‘a mix of austerity and bewitching eeriness’ at all.” But hey, director James Grey deserves a summer home, too.
For more detailed box office insight, visit Box Office Mojo., and we’ll see you back here in a week to watch the calm, thoughtful, and not at all bonkers discussions that will be generated following the release of Joker.