Monday Update: Focus Features’ British television-to-film adaptation Downton Abbey surpassed even the most optimistic projections, as the historical drama debuted with a $31.0M opening.

[Read our interview with Downton Abbey movie director Michael Engler here.]

The Disney / Fox outer space drama Ad Astra blasted off to second place with $19.0M, or +18.7% above last fall’s First Man.

Lionsgate action sequel Rambo: Last Blood was just behind in third place with $18.8M. That’s just ahead of previous installment, 2008’s Rambo, although adjusted for ticket price inflation that version was about +21.0% ahead.

Disney’s The Lion King remake came in sixth place with $2.6M, earning a 10th weekend in the top 10. That makes it the fourth film of the past year to reach that mark, alongside Aladdin, Avengers: Endgame, and Green Book. 

Surveying the upcoming release schedule, with only one major wide release debuting each of the next two weekends, Lion seems guaranteed to earn an 11th top-10 weekend next frame. A 12th such weekend seems likely as well. 

Comparisons

Total box office this weekend was $123.1M.

That’s +11.2% above last weekend and +33.4% above this same weekend last year, when The House with a Clock in its Walls led with $26.6M.

Year-to-date box office stands at $8.28B. That’s -5.6% behind this same date last year, up from -6.0% after last weekend.

That current -5.6% is the closest the 2019 box office has come to the 2018 YTD level since after the very first weekend of January, when it was -5.0% behind.

It overtakes the prior post-January high of -5.8%, from early June.

Sunday Update: After several weekends of sparse options in the way of new wide releases aside from such all-consuming phenomenons like It: Chapter Two and Hustlers, the fall box office offered a much more diverse lineup this weekend with a trio of newcomers including the feature-film continuation of Downton Abbey, the Brad Pitt sci-fi Ad Astra and the latest entry in Sylvester Stallone’s long-running Rambo franchise, Last Blood. Of those, it was Downton that came out on top with an estimated $31 million gross, notching the best-ever opening for a Focus Features release by a wide margin, easily topping previous No. 1 Insidious: Chapter 3 ($22.6M).

Debuting in 3,079 locations, Downton Abbey connected strongly with its target audience this weekend, speaking both to the series’ ardent following and the fact that it’s one of the few films to target the often-underserved audience of older adults. Judging from the film’s “A” Cinemascore and 96% RT Audience Score, those who showed up were pleased with the results. Crucially, the film also proved to be a hit with critics, snagging a strong Rotten Tomatoes average of 85%. It should be noted that the opening number for Downton also included $2.2 million from advance fan screenings that were held on September 12.

Narrowly finishing in second was Disney’s release of Fox’s Ad Astra, which grossed an estimated $19.2 million from 3,460 locations. The studio is clearly hoping for strong holding power from the film, which has been positioned as an early fall-season “prestige” offering after previously being slated for release in January and, later, May of this year (though its “B-” Cinemascore and 45% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes don’t exactly inspire confidence about its long-term prospects). It’s worth noting that Ad Astra has a similar profile to last year’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, which also starred an A-list actor (Ryan Gosling) and garnered similarly positive reviews (Ad Astra has 82% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing, while First Man boasted an 87% average). Luckily, star Brad Pitt continues to hold strong appeal to overseas audiences – which, judging by Ad Astra‘s reported $100 million budget, it will likely need to reach profitability.

After running neck-and-neck with Ad Astra throughout the weekend, Lionsgate’s Rambo: Last Blood ultimately finished in third place with an estimated $19 million from 3,618 locations. That gives the fifth installment in the Sylvester Stallone franchise (and the first entry in 11 years) the second-highest opening of any Rambo movie to date not adjusting for inflation. While a notch higher than 2008’s Rambo ($18.2 million), it couldn’t quite match the debut of Rambo: First Blood Part II, which opened to $20.1 million way back in 1985 (an amount equivalent to around $48 million in 2019 dollars). Still, mainly negative reviews (29% on Rotten Tomatoes) couldn’t keep the franchise’s core male fanbase away from the gruesome action flick this weekend, which earned a “B” Cinemascore from opening day audiences. It also currently boasts a 86% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes,

Falling to fourth place was last weekend’s breakout hit Hustlers, which added nearly 300 locations following its STX-record $33.1 million debut last weekend. The film’s sophomore-weekend gross of $17 million represented a drop of 49% from its opening, giving the Jennifer Lopez-Constance Wu crime drama a total of $62.5 million after ten days of release. That amount makes it the fourth-highest-grossing STX release to date, just behind 2017’s A Bad Moms Christmas ($72.1 million).

After spending two weekends straight at No. 1, It: Chapter Two was knocked from its perch all the way down to fifth place this weekend with an estimated $17.2 million. That’s a drop of 56% from its sophomore frame, putting the horror sequel at a strong $179.1 million to date (though it’s pacing far behind the first It, which already had $266 million by the same point in its run).

The rest of the Top 10 this weekend consisted of longtime holdovers. First out of the gate is Disney’s The Lion King, which fell out of the Top 5 for the first time with an estimated $2.6 million, giving the CGI remake a total of $537.6 million to date. The blockbuster will finish its run as the eleventh highest-grossing film of all time in North America.

Seventh place went to Universal’s Good Boys with an estimated $2.5 million in its sixth weekend for a total of $77.3 million to date, while in eighth, Angel Has Fallen finished its fifth weekend with an estimated $2.4 million for $64.6 million to date, effectively surpassing the lifetime domestic gross of its immediate predecessor London Has Fallen ($62.5 million total).

Rounding out the Top 10, Sony/Affirm’s faith-based drama Overcomer brought in an estimated $1.5 million for a total of $31.5 million through the end of its fifth weekend, while Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw grossed an estimated $1.46 million, giving the Universal action spinoff $170.6 million through the end of its eighth weekend.

Overseas Update:

Downton Abbey took in an estimated $10 million overseas this weekend in 32 markets, including an estimated $3.6 million sophomore frame in its native U.K. Its international total is now $30.8 million while its global tally is $61.8 million.

Ad Astra grossed an estimated $26 million in 44 markets, giving it a global opening gross of $45.2 million.

It: Chapter Two took in $21.3 million in 78 overseas markets this weekend, bringing its total to $205.9 million internationally and $385.1 million worldwide. Individual market tallies include $19.8 million in the U.K., $19.6 million in Mexico and $16.1 million in Russia.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood brought in an estimated $9.9 million this weekend overseas including a robust $5.4 million opening in Italy, pushing the Sony release to $206.4 million internationally and $344.6 million worldwide.

The post Weekend Actuals: <em>Downton Abbey</em> Climbs to No. 1 w/ Outstanding $31.0M; <em>Ad Astra</em> ($19.0M) and <em>Rambo: Last Blood</em> ($18.8M) Finish Neck-And-Neck appeared first on Boxoffice.