Talk about scary good.
‘Us,’ the second directorial effort from Jordan Peele, pulled off a stunning debut, generating $70 million from 3,741 North American locations. That haul is enough to land it the second-best opening weekend of the year behind just Disney's ‘Captain Marvel’ ($153 million). The psychological thriller about a family confronted by a band of doppelgangers nearly doubled projections, which estimated a three-day total in the $38 million to $45 million range.
‘Us’ now has the largest weekend for original horror movie, surpassing ‘A Quiet Place,’ as well as the biggest launch for an original R-rated film behind ‘Ted.’ It also shattered the benchmark set by Peele's directorial debut ‘Get Out,’ which launched with $33 million in 2017.
Universal, Jason Blum, and Peele's Monkeypaw Productions produced ‘Us’ for $20 million. Since its debut at the South by Southwest Film Festival, ‘Us’ has built up word of mouth. It has a 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, rare praise for the horror genre. It stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke as a couple forced to fend off blood-thirsty clones while vacationing with their kids.
While ‘Us’ catered to moviegoers looking for a good fright, ‘Captain Marvel’ was doing some terrifying business of its own during the superhero blockbuster's third weekend of release. The female-fronted tentpole added another $34 million, taking its domestic tally past $320 million.
Since no studios dared to release a movie in anticipation of ‘Us,’ a number of holdovers rounded out domestic box office charts. Paramount Pictures' animated adventure ‘Wonder Park’ landed in third place, earning $9 million for a North American bounty of $29 million.
‘Five Feet Apart,’ a romantic drama about two teens who fall in love while undergoing treatment for cystic fibrosis, secured the fourth slot with $8.5 million. The film has earned $26 million to date.
Coming in at No. 5 is Universal and DreamWorks' ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.’ The conclusion to the ‘Dragon’ trilogy pocketed $6.5 million in its fifth weekend in theaters, bringing its domestic total to $145 million.
Among specialty releases, Bleecker Street's ‘Hotel Mumbai’ pulled in $89,492 when it bowed in four theaters in New York and Los Angeles, translating to $21,623 per venue. The R-rated terrorist thriller -- starring Dev Patel and Armie Hammer -- follows the victims and survivors of the 2008 attacks at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India. The movie was pulled from theaters in New Zealand following the Christchurch shooting.