Shyamalan's 'Split' tries to hold off 'Rings' at the box office
The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Last Airbender, and The Village. Those are the only four M. Night Shyamalan movies to have earned more domestically than Split.
The James McAvoy-led horror flick picked up an estimated $14.6 million in its third weekend, which was good enough for a three-peat at #1 in the domestic box office. That's a feat director M. Night Shyamalan hasn't pulled off since The Sixth Sense (which spent five weekends at #1).
The third weekend estimate brings Split's domestic take to $98.7 million, just edging out Shyamalan's cult hit, Unbreakable, which ended its 2000/2001 domestic run at $95 million. It's an impressive 17-day performance that only stands to improve.
Split will very likely surpass The Village ($114.2 million) in the next few weeks, and it has an outside chance of catching up to The Last Airbender ($131.8 million) as well. Signs and The Sixth Sense -- at $228 million and $293.5 million, respectively -- are safe.
Trailing at #2 for the weekend is Rings, Paramount's 12-years-later third entry in the Americanized J-horror series. The estimated $13 million domestic take falls just short of the original 2002 movie's $15 million opening.
Ticket sales don't tell the whole story, however. Rings pulled in only a couple million less than The Ring, but it did so with a much wider opening: 2,931 theaters for the new movie, versus 1,981 for the original.
The Ring Two fared even better in the beginning than the first movie -- it opened at $35.1 million in 2005 -- but its domestic run ended at $76.2 million, compared to The Ring's $129.1 million.
All of which is to say: early signs do not look good for Rings. Paramount took a gamble on reviving a series that's been gone for more than a decade, but the finished product doesn't seem to be resonating. And with an astonishingly low critics rating on RottenTomatoes, this one isn't likely to replicate the original's slow burn.
While it was a light weekend at the box office overall, it's worth noting that the weekend's top two winners are horror movies. A Dog's Purpose ($10.8 million), Hidden Figures ($10.1 million), and La La Land ($7.5 million) fill out the rest of the top five, but audiences seem to be opting for visceral tension over feel-good storytelling.
All current box office estimates are provided by comScore and all historical data is sourced from Box Office Mojo.
Topics Film
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
