'Bad Boys' stays on top of the box office in its third weekend

[NEW YORK] For "Bad Boys for Life," the third weekend was the charm. Just like the second was. And the first.

The third film in the action-comedy franchise, which stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, easily led the box office over the weekend, bringing in an estimated US$17.7 million in domestic ticket sales. It was the film's third weekend in theatres and third weekend in the top spot; its cumulative domestic sales now stand at around US$148.1 million. "Bad Boys for Life" has made an additional US$142.7 million overseas according to Sony, the film's distributor.

This weekend's two newcomers did far less well.

"Gretel & Hansel" (United Artists), an eerie rethink of a Grimm fairy tale, opened this weekend to an estimated US$6.1 million in domestic sales. That's weak but not a disaster for a relatively low-budget thriller, and was at least enough to land the movie in the top five. (Estimates have it in fourth place.)

Directed by Osgood Perkins, who has made somewhat of a name for himself on the back of two low-budget, atmospheric horror movies, "Gretel & Hansel" keeps the basic setup of the fairy tale that its name is a play on. The movie, which notched middling reviews (it currently holds a 56 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) centres on two siblings (played by Sophia Lillis and Sammy Leakey) who find themselves lured into the woodland cottage of an old, malevolent woman (Alice Krige).

Still, "Gretel & Hansel" did better than this weekend's other newcomer. That would be Paramount's "The Rhythm Section," an action movie that managed just US$2.8 million in estimated domestic sales this weekend - a paltry amount next to the movie's reported US$50 million budget.

Apart from "Gretel & Hansel," the top five movies over the weekend were all holdovers. Second place went to Universal's World War I movie "1917," the best picture front-runner that sold an estimated US$9.7 million in tickets over the weekend, its fourth in wide release. "Dolittle," a comedy also distributed by Universal, landed in third with about US$7.7 million over the weekend, its third in theatres. And STXfilms' week-old action comedy "The Gentlemen," from director Guy Ritchie, sold an estimated US$6 million in tickets over the weekend.

NEW YORK TIMES