‘Angel Has Fallen’ Tops Labor Day Weekend Box-Office Results

(Bloomberg) -- “Angel Has Fallen” led the North American box office over the U.S. Labor Day weekend, slightly beating forecasts after its strong opening a week earlier.

• Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.’s action movie, with Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman, brought in a $15.4 million from U.S. and Canadian theaters, researcher Comscore Inc. said Tuesday. The film was projected to take in $15.1 million in the summer movie season’s final weekend, according to Box Office Mojo.

Key Insights

• Three new movies opened in more than 900 locations. But Yash Raj Films’ thriller “Saaho,” Forrest Films’ drama “Bennett’s War” and OTL’s “Don’t Let Go,” the fourth major horror flick to hit theaters in the past month, all failed to crack the top 10.

• “Good Boys,” the R-rated comedy from Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, landed in second place. Other holdovers, “Overcomer,” from Sony Corp.’s Affirm Films, and the horror film “Ready or Not,” from Walt Disney Co.’s Fox Searchlight, ranked fifth and sixth, respectively.
• In a Friday opinion piece in the Week magazine about studios’ approach to Labor Day, film critic Jesse Hassenger wrote, “It’s odd that a holiday weekend would be a designated give-up zone.... Every other major holiday weekend of the year is now treated as a major opportunity.”
• Studios debuted more than 10 wide-release movies over just two weekends in August. September is expected to pick up again with two films from AT&T Inc.’s Warner Bros. -- horror sequel “It: Chapter Two” and “The Goldfinch,” based on Donna Tartt’s novel, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
• Sales of the top 10 movies over the extended weekend rose 14% from a year earlier, better than the decline of 3% to 8% that Box Office Pro had estimated. Last year, “Crazy Rich Asians” led the top 10 films.

Get More

• See the weekend release schedule.
• See Box Office Pro’s long-range forecast.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub

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