Kid flick Paw Patrol beats blood-soaked Saw X to top North American box office
PARAMOUNT’S new kids’ movie Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie bounded to the top of the North American box office this weekend, with a tail-wagging take estimated at US$23 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported on Sunday (Oct 1).
“This is an excellent opening,” said analyst David Gross, adding that while the Paw Patrol series was “not in the league of the Disney, Pixar and Illumination juggernauts”, it also carried a far smaller production budget – around US$30 million – and looks to be headed for a profitable future.
The film has the hard-working Paw Patrol pups – now endowed with superpowers – fighting again to save Adventure City. Voice actors include Taraji P Henson, Chris Rock, Serena Williams and McKenna Grace.
In second place for the Friday-through-Sunday period was another new release, Lionsgate horror film Saw X. It sold an estimated US$18 million in tickets, not a bad weekend for a film made for just US$13 million.
Saw X is the first in the violence-filled Saw series to score overwhelmingly positive reviews, according to Variety. Tobin Bell, as the infamous Jigsaw, this time kidnaps doctors as he takes on greedy medical con artists.
New 20th Century sci-fi thriller The Creator came in third, at US$14 million. Its of-the-moment setting: a world where humans are at war with artificial intelligence.
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John David Washington plays a special agent sent to kill the titular Creator. Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney also star.
In fourth was the box office leader of the past three weekends, The Nun II from Warner Bros, at US$4.7 million. This Conjuring series spinoff stars Taissa Farmiga in a tale of Gothic horror.
And in fifth was another new release, Fathom Events’ faith-based The Blind, at US$4.1 million. Set in the Louisiana swamps in the 1960s, it portrays the real-life struggles of Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson with addiction and romance.
Overall, the year’s box office is down 15.5 per cent from last year, and this despite the huge successes of Barbie – now at US$800 million internationally and US$1.4 billion worldwide – and Oppenheimer, Gross said. The rest of the year does not look a lot better, he added.
Rounding out the weekend’s top 10 were:
- A Haunting in Venice (US$3.8 million)
- Dumb Money (US$3.5 million)
- The Equalizer 3 (US$2.7 million)
- Expend4bles (US$2.5 million)
- Barbie (US$1.4 million) AFP
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