'Hitman's Bodyguard' Tops Weekend with $21M+ Opening as 'Logan Lucky' Falls Short
Lionsgate and Summit's action-comedy The Hitman's Bodyguard finished ahead of pre-weekend expectations and took the #1 spot at the weekend box office while WB and New Line's Annabelle: Creation scored a second place finish over its sophomore frame. The weekend wasn't too kind, however, to Bleecker's Logan Lucky, which did manage to finish third, but was unable to crack double digits from over 3,000 locations. As for the weekend overall, the top twelve narrowly escaped becoming the worst weekend of 2017 by less than $1 million by combining for $81.5 million. As of right now, this means the month of August is currently pacing 34% behind August last year while the summer season is pacing 12.8% behind last year.

With an estimated $21.6 million, Lionsgate's release of The Hitman's Bodyguard finished #1 at the box office. This outperforms Mojo's pre-release forecast and is just a shade below historical averages for a film of this size and genre from Lionsgate. Heading into the weekend reviews weren't exactly glowing for the film, which received a score of 50 on Metacritic, but audiences mostly took to the Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson starrer, giving it a "B+" CinemaScore. Of that audience, 52% were male vs. 48% female and 70% of the overall audience was over the age of 25.

Finishing in runner-up position is last weekend's champ, WB and New Line's Annabelle: Creation, which dropped 56% in its second weekend and finished with an estimated $15.5 million for a domestic cume just shy of $65 million. Internationally, the film added an estimated $42 million this weekend from 56 markets for an overseas total of $96.7 million with the film set to open next week in Germany followed by October releases in Spain and Japan.

That said, the Annabelle sequel contributes nearly $161 million to the overall Conjuring franchise, which has now grossed over $1 billion worldwide after the release of just four films. Next up is 2018's The Nun, a spin-off based on the demonic character seen in The Conjuring 2.

In third, Bleecker's release of Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky was a bit unlucky, finishing with an estimated $8 million from 3,031 locations. Strong reviews accompanied the film heading into the weekend, but a marketing plan, of which Soderbergh oversaw, that focused on a later push rather than getting advanced word out seems to have had an effect, especially when you consider the fact it shared a lot of the same audience as Hitman's Bodyguard. The latter won out and while critics were more welcoming to Logan Lucky (78 on Metacritic), the film's "B" CinemaScore was just a bit behind.

The opening is the lowest for a wide release directed by Soderbergh since the $6.7 million opening for 2002's Solaris. For a couple of the film's stars, it's the lowest opening for a wide release for Channing Tatum since the $4.5 million debut for Stop-Loss in 2008, which opened in less than half the theaters as Logan Lucky and for Daniel Craig it's a bit less than 2011's Dream House and his lowest wide opening since the $5.9 million debut for The Invasion in 2007.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk finished in fourth place with an estimated $6.7 million bringing its domestic total to $165.5 million. Internationally, Dunkirk added an estimated $8.4 million from 61 markets bringing the film's overseas cume to $227.2 million for a global tally of $392.7 million, topping the $372.7 million worldwide gross for Batman Begins making Dunkirk Nolan's Christopher Nolan.

Rounding out the top five is Open Road's The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, which dropped 38.7% in its sophomore session for a $5.1 million weekend and a domestic cume that currently stands at $17.7 million.

Outside the top five, Universal's Girls Trip topped $100 million last week and added an estimated $3.8 million this weekend for a domestic cume that now totals $103.9 million, $8.7 million ahead of where Bad Moms was at the same point in its release prior to grossing over $113 million domestically.

Elsewhere in the top ten, Wind River expanded into 694 theaters (+649) and saw a 386% jump for an estimated $3 million weekend and a $4,359 per theater average. The performance is similar to The Beguiled from earlier this year when it expanded into over 670 theaters and went on to gross over $10.5 million.

In limited release, Fox Searchlight's Patti Cake$ brought in an estimated $66,000 from 14 locations ($4,714 PTA). The film is expected to add ten new markets next weekend and by the long Labor Day weekend is expected to be in 300-400 locations.

Additionally, Amazon's Crown Heights delivered an estimated $27,552 from three locations ($9,184 PTA); Sam Goldwyn's Gook brought in an estimated $31,100 from two locations; Well Go's The Adventurers brought in an estimated $65,000 from 17 locations ($3,824 PTA); FilmRise saw Marjorie Prime finish with an estimated $24,000 from six locations ($4,000); Dave Made a Maze found $13,178 from 13 theaters ($1,014 PTA); and Parade Deck's Lycan scared up $4,860 from five sites ($972 PTA).

In other news, Universal crossed $3 billion at the international box office this weekend. One of their hits this year being Despicable Me 3, which is on the verge of topping $1 billion worldwide as it passed $250 million domestically this weekend and is nearing $700 million internationally for a global cume that currently sits just shy of $950 million.

Additionally, Wonder Woman topped $800 million worldwide this weekend and became the highest grossing superhero origin film with $404 million domestically, topping 2002's Spider-Man (not adjusted for inflation).

Next weekend sees a trio of smaller wide releases hit theaters with the Weinstein's animated release Leap! leading the charge in ~2,000 theaters along with BH Tilt's release of Birth of the Dragon in ~1,500 locations and Sony's release of All Saints in ~800 theaters. Additionally, Fox International will release A Gentleman into 135 theaters and A24 will expand the release of Good Time across multiple markets nationwide.

You can check out all of this weekend's estimated results right here and we'll be updating our charts with weekend actuals on Monday afternoon.

Discuss this story with fellow Box Office Mojo fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @boxofficemojo and author Brad Brevet at @bradbrevet.