After a hot streak that literally no one saw coming,Jumanji: Welcome to the Junglelooks to be finally relinquishing its thrown at the box office this weekend. We haveMaze Runner: The Death Cure, an astonishingly bland conclusion to an utterly innocuous franchise, to thank for this sea change, as the third chapter of theMaze Runnerseries hit number one on Friday with $8.4 million.Jumanjifell to second with $3.7 million and though the adventure-comedy has done this before only to come back to number one by Sunday evening,Maze Runner’s triumph will almost certainly keep going strong throughout the weekend.
This long-delayed defeat isn’t the biggest surprise that Friday brought at the box office. Much more beguiling was the introduction ofHostiles,Scott Cooper’s brutal and somewhat botched Western, into the top five. After being largely ignored during the awards circuit,Hostilesseemed to be bound for minor limited-release glory but it crawled up to third place by the end of Friday with $3.4 million to add onto the $1.7 million or so it made in its initial limited run. Though the star power ofChristian Balecertainly has something to do with this ascension, one has to also consider some clever marketing to the demo that would most enjoy the period warfare that Cooper so carefully details, namely the 45-and-older crowd.
Hostiles success was notable enough to not just sendSteven Spielberg’sThe Postdown to fifth place with $2.4 million, but also to cut-offThe Greatest Showman’s unexpected rise at the box office.The Greatest Showmanended up in fourth on Friday with $2.5 million, adding to an increasingly impressive domestic gross that cracked $100 million two weeks ago. There’s still plenty of time forThe Greatest ShowmanorThe Postto make up ground, as merely $1 million separates the third, fourth, and fifth-place films.The Greatest Showmancould still end up in third by Sunday, but the chances ofJumanjiarising again for one last weekend at the top are looking bleak, to say the least.
Here’s your top five at the box office for Friday:
Friday Domestic BO
Total Domestic BO
1. ‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’
$8,400,000
- ’Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’
$3,775,000
$325,432,203
3. ‘Hostiles’
$3,400,000
$5,247,795
4. ‘The Greatest Showman’
$2,540,000
$119,515,232
5. ‘The Post’
$2,400,000
$52,085,923
