Studio Weekend Estimates: ‘Cars 3’ Revs Its Engines w/ $53.6M; ‘All Eyez on Me’ Eyes $26.4M; ’47 Meters Down’ Circles the Waters w/ $11.2M

Monday Update: Cars 3 revved its engines to a $53.6 million debut, enough to capture first place but representing Disney-Pixar’s second-lowest wide opening weekend ever when adjusting for inflation.

Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman, which had led for the past two frames, dropped to second place with $41.2 million. Its mild 29.5 percent decline, after a mere 43.3 percent drop the weekend prior, represent some of the best holds that any superhero movie has ever experienced in the modern era.

Lionsgate’s rap biopic All Eyez on Me about ’90s rapper Tupac Shakur found many “eyez” on it with a $26.4 million opening in third place. That’s slightly ahead of the opening of Notorious, the film from a few years ago about Shakur’s rap rival The Notorious B.I.G.

Entertainment Studios’ shark thriller 47 Meters Down took a bite out of the box office with a surprise fifth place at $11.2 million, double or more what most pre-release estimates predicted. And Sony’s R-rated comedy Rough Night also surprised in the opposite direction, with a “rough” seventh place start of $8.0 million — less than half of what some pre-release estimates predicted.

More analysis and numbers are in our Sunday update below, and the full table of box office actuals is at bottom.

Sunday Update: Cars 3 revved its engines to a $53.5 million debut, enough to capture first place but Pixar’s second-lowest wide opening weekend ever when adjusting for inflation. All Eyez on Me found many “eyez” on it, 47 Meters Down beat even the most optimistic expectations, and Rough Night had a rough debut.

Ordering the 18 Pixar films by wide release opening, Cars 3 ranks #14 by pure dollars. That drops to #17 when adjusting for inflation, or second-worst behind only The Good Dinosaur.

Disney’s animated sequel opened 10.9 percent and 19.0 percent below its two predecessors respectively. Adjusted for inflation, the comparisons look even worse, with Cars 3 starting 34.0 percent and 26.1 percent behind its predecessors respectively.

Keep in mind that Cars 3 may make up for its middling domestic gross overseas, just as Cars 2 earned less than the first film domestically but nonetheless earned more globally thanks to strongly improved overseas numbers.

[Read our interview with Cars 3 director Brian Fee, plus the film’s screenwriters and producers, here.]

Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman, the leader for the past two weekends, took second place with $40.7 million.

Superhero movies almost always start high but then fall fast. Yet Wonder Woman stunned last frame with a mere 43.3 percent drop, the lowest second-weekend decline for a superhero film since 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

This frame Woman kept up the trend by falling only 30.3 percent, almost unheard of for a superhero film. For comparison, the lowest third-weekend drop among 2016’s six superhero releases was 44.9 percent. Chalk it up to great word of mouth, plus underwhelming debuts from potential competition like The Mummy and Rough Night.

Lionsgate’s drama All Eyez on Me, a biopic about 1990s rapper Tupac Shakur, began in third place with $27.0 million. Despite a 24 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned a solid debut.

The film opens 31.9 percent above Notorious about fellow ‘90s rapper the Notorious B.I.G., though it does begin 55.0 percent below Straight Outta Compton about ‘80s rap group N.W.A. (Although that comparison may be a bit unfair, as Straight was one of the most surprising box office hits of this decade.)

[Read our interview with All Eyez on Me director Benny Boom here.]

Two other films opened wide this weekend, and in a stunner that almost nobody anticipated, Entertainment Studios’ shark thriller 47 Meters Down beat Sony’s R-rated comedy Rough Night.

Meters earned fifth place with $11.5 million, even though the highest that any user guessed on prediction website Box Office Theory was $10 million. Credit the surprise debut to an effective advertising campaign including many television spots during the NBA Finals, because its 54 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating didn’t help much.

Sony’s female-centered Rough Night started in seventh place with $8.0 million, only about half of pre-release expectations.

This decade’s trend of R-rated female-driven comedies went several straight years without producing a true dud, with titles such as Bridesmaids, Trainwreck, Bad Moms, Ghostbusters, and The Heat all earning more than $100 million total. But this summer has halted that streak, with both Rough and May’s Snatched disappointing at the box office — and Rough starts 58.8 percent below even Snatched.

Scarlett Johansson, one of this decade’s highest-paid actresses, has now starred in her second box office bomb in four months after March’s Ghost in the Shell. Although next year’s Avengers installment should surely earn tons, this year’s two titles will likely hurt her bankability and star power moving forward.

The top 10 films this weekend earned an estimated $178.2 million total. That’s 29.8 percent above the amount earned by the top 10 last weekend. It’s also 27.7 percent percent above the amount earned by the top 10 on this weekend last year, when The Conjuring 2 led with $40.4 million.

Overseas Update:

Despite its poor showing domestically, Universal’s The Mummy led overseas for the second weekend with $53.0 million, down 62.3 percent. The film has now earned $295.6 million globally, of which 80.9 percent has come overseas, one of the highest percentages ever among films to have earned at least that much globally.

Also doing well overseas were Wonder Woman with $39.5 million, Fox’s Alien: Covenant with $30.5 million ($29.9 million from its debut in China), and Cars 3 with $21.3 million. The latter is a staggered release with other major markets yet to premiere.

Weekend Actuals for Friday, June 16 – Sunday, June 18, 2017:

Studio Weekend Estimates for Friday, June 16 – Sunday, June 18, 2017: