It was a pretty robust Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend at the box office. Three big new releases arrived in theaters led by Wuthering Heights ($34.8 million), followed by the animated GOAT $26 million and Crime 101 ($24.1 million). Gore Verbinski’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die opened a bit further down on the chart with $3.6 million. Even against such stiff competition though, Sam Raimi’s Send Help held surprisingly strong on its third weekend of release. So much so that it’s downright hard to believe.
See also: Sam Raimi Movies: 8 Of His Best
Raimi’s acclaimed horror/thriller added an estimated $8.9 million domestically, which doesn’t even account for the Monday holiday yet. What’s truly remarkable is that it represents a mere 1% drop from the prior weekend when Send Help led the pack during the pretty dead Super Bowl frame. To say that a big studio movie dropping 1% on its third weekend of wide release – particularly against a wave of competition like this – is rare would be a bit of an understatement. It also lost 500 screens this weekend, making it even more impressive.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which became one of Hollywood’s biggest original hits in years, dropped just 4% in its second weekend last year, going from an opening weekend of $48 million down to $45.7 million. Let me put it this way; it’s not that a drop this low never happens but it’s rare air. What it suggests is that word of mouth for Raimi’s latest is quite good, at least in North America.
Send Help centers on two work colleagues who are at odds with one another. They become stranded on an island in the aftermath of a deadly plane crash and must overcome their differences in order to survive. Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange) and Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner) lead the cast.
To date, the movie has pulled in $72 million worldwide, including $47.8 million domestically. It’s lagging a bit overseas, with just $24.2 million to date. That’s really the only issue here since the movie carries a $40 million price tag. Disney needed it to have legs and, based on this most recent weekend, it’s absolutely got legs. It’s just a matter of how far those legs can extend in the coming weeks.
This upcoming weekend sees How to Make a Killing, Psycho Killer and I Can Only Imagine 2 opening. Again, more horror to contend with. Then we get a big one to round out February as Scream 7 arrives following its Super Bowl push. Paramount appears to have a lot of faith in it. That’s a lot of direct competition but Raimi has clearly made a crowd-pleaser. It should hang around for a little while longer at the very least.
Send Help is in theaters now.
