Monday Update:

Universal’s Night School posted the best opening of any live action comedy so far year with $27.7M. (That is, not counting animated films or action comedies like Deadpool.)

Warner Bros.’ animated Smallfoot started in second place with $23.0M, about in line with pre-release projections.

Last weekend’s leader, Universal’s family film The House with a Clock in its Walls, took third with a -52.6% drop to $12.6M.

Lionsgate’s new horror release Hell Fest opened in sixth place with $5.1M.

Neon’s action movie Assassination Nation experienced one of the 10 steepest second-weekend drops of all time, crashing by -80.7%.

National Geographic Entertainment’s documentary Free Solo set the best per-theater average of the year so far, with $300,784 on four screens, or $75,201 per theater. That beats this year’s previous record, A24’s Eighth Grade which opened with a $65,949 average in July.

Comparisons

Total box office this weekend was $105.8M.

That’s +14.9% above last weekend and +16.5% above this same weekend last year, when Kingsman: The Golden Circle led for a second frame with $16.9M.

Year-to-date box office stands at $8.89B. That’s +8.7% ahead of this same date last year, down slightly from +8.8% after last weekend.

Demographics

The audience for Night School was 53.7% male and 37.4% below age 25.

The audience for Smallfoot was 55.8% male and 54.1% below age 25.

The most male audience in this weekend’s top 10 was The Predator at 67.4%, while the most female audience was Crazy Rich Asians at 59.5%.

The most under-25 audience in this weekend’s top 10 was Smallfoot at 54.1%, while the most over-25 audience was Peppermint at 84.1%.

A full demographic breakdown of the top 30 movies this weekend, courtesy of BoxofficeProfile by Vertigo, is included below:

Our full table of weekend actuals is below, followed by our Sunday update with fuller analysis.

Monday’s Weekend Actuals (Domestic)

FRI, SEP. 28 – SUN, SEP. 30

Sunday Update:

The one-two punch of Night School and Smallfoot this weekend helped September 2018 close out to a near-record high  (second only to last year), with the new releases bringing in an estimated $28 million and $23 million, respectively. Further down the chart, the amusement park-themed slasher movie Hell Fest enjoyed a decent opening while the latest cinematic adaptation of Little Women debuted outside the Top 10.

Night School easily won the crown at the North American box office this weekend thanks to its pairing of two of comedy’s biggest stars, Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart. The duo’s combined A-list wattage was enough to overcome negative reviews (it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 30%), allowing it to fall roughly in line with the opening of Hart’s Think Like a Man Too, which debuted to $29.2 million back in 2014. The Universal release is yet another box office feather in the cap for Hart, one of the most consistent performers in Hollywood whose live-action starring vehicles consistently debut north of $20 million, and even more of which (Central Intelligence, Get Hard, Ride Along 1 and 2, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) manage $30 million or more in their opening weekends.

For Haddish, who has a much less extensive filmography than Hart up to this point, the film came in lower than her starmaking 2017 release Girls Trip ($31.2 million), though that film also fared much better with critics. Still, Night School boasts a healthy “A-” Cinemascore from opening day audiences, and with a reported production budget of $29 million, this is another clear success for both stars as well as super-producer Will Packer, whose filmography includes Girls Trip, both Ride Along films, and this year’s hit Gabrielle Union thriller Breaking In. It’s also worth noting that Night School now boasts the highest opening weekend of any comedy in 2018, which has been a rough year for the genre overall.

Coming in second was the animated comedy Smallfoot, whose $23 million opening compares favorably with 2016’s Storks ($21.3 million) and last year’s The LEGO Ninjago Movie ($20.4 million), both of which also came also from Warner Bros. Animation. Produced on a reported budget of $80 million, the film garnered mixed reviews (its Rotten Tomatoes score is on the lower end of “Fresh” at 69%), though audiences expectedly liked it much better (its Cinemascore is an “A-” from the generally more forgiving family audience).

The real test for Smallfoot will come in subsequent weeks, though the release calendar looks somewhat favorable, with a fall season relatively light on family entertainment aside from Goosebumps 2 (October 12) and Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (November 2). As for animated movies, there’s nothing on the horizon until Universal’s The Grinch, which drops November 9. If it performs similarly to Storks, whose weekend-to-final multiplier of 3.4x gave it a final gross of $72.6 million, it would finish somewhere in the neighborhood of $70-$80 million by the end of its run.

Dipping to third place in its sophomore frame was last weekend’s No. 1 film The House With a Clock in Its Walls, which appears to have taken a hit from the release of Smallfoot. Dropping 53 percent to an estimated $12.5 million this weekend, the Universal release now stands at a good $44.7 million after ten days, putting it slightly ahead of Jack Black’s Goosebumps at the same point. That said, the film will have to hold up much better in the coming weeks if it’s to keep pace with that title.

Fourth went to Warner Bros.’ sleeper hit A Simple Favor, which enjoyed another good hold, easing just 35 percent in its third weekend of release with an estimated $6.6 million. The Anna Kendrick-Blake Lively mystery now has a solid $43 million in the bank, and it looks primed to continue its strong performance as we move into October.

In fifth, The Nun brought in an estimated $5.4 million in its fourth weekend, giving the Warner Bros. horror spinoff an excellent $109 million so far. It’s currently the second highest-grossing entry in the Conjuring franchise in North America, second only to the first Conjuring which ended its run with $137.4 million in 2013.

One of the weekend’s other new wide releases, the Lionsgate horror flick Hell Fest, debuted in sixth place with an estimated $5 million in 2,297 locations. That’s a good result for the low-budget film, which comes with a reported price tag of $5.5 million. The opening is higher than July’s similar Unfriended: Dark Web (though that film played on over 700 fewer screens) but weaker than the opening of last month’s Slender Man, which debuted to $11.3 million in about the same number of locations. All in all, it’s a good-enough result for the R-rated effort.

Seventh place went to the ultra-leggy rom com Crazy Rich Asians, which added an estimated $4.1 million in its seventh weekend of release. The Warner Bros. title now stands at a remarkable $165.6 million since opening in early August.

Rounding out the Top 10, The Predator dropped to eighth place in its third weekend with $3.7 million, giving the Fox reboot a disappointing $47.6 million so far. Ninth went to White Boy Rick with an estimated $2.3 million, giving it $21.7 million after three weeks of release, while in tenth Peppermint grossed an estimated $1.7 million in its fourth weekend. The Jennifer Garner revenge thriller now has $33.5 million in the bank.

Finally, Pinnacle Peak’s Little Women – a modern-day retelling of the famed Louisa May Alcott novel – couldn’t manage a Top 10 placement in its opening weekend, bringing in an estimated $747K on 643 screens.

Limited Release:

Acclaimed Robert Redford crime comedy The Old Man and the Gun debuted well in limited release, bringing in an estimated $150,000 on just five screens. That was good for a per-screen average of $30,000 as it eyes an expansion in the coming weeks.

Last weekend’s successful limited openers Colette and The Sisters Brothers expanded to 38 and 27 theaters respectively, bringing in an estimated $418K and $244K. Colette now has a total of $638K while The Sisters Brothers has $404K.

Overseas Update:

Night School managed a hefty debut internationally as well, bringing in an estimated $33.5 million in 19 markets. That brings its worldwide opening weekend total to a fantastic $61.5 million.

Smallfoot brought in an estimated $14 million in 49 international markets, giving it a global opening haul of $37 million.

The Nun surpassed The Conjuring 2‘s global gross this weekend to become the highest-grossing release in the Conjuring franchise worldwide, adding another $16.2 million overseas. Its international total now stands at a fantastic $33o million.

Disney’s Incredibles 2 passed the $1.2 billion mark worldwide in its sixteenth weekend of release, making it only the second animated film to do so after 2013’s Frozen. It’s now the seventeenth highest-grossing film of all time globally.

Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates (Domestic)

FRI, SEP. 28 – SUN, SEP. 30