As Clint Eastwood's masterful Sully hits $100 million at the box office, the multiplex has been aching for a bonafide blockbuster to come in and wreck the place. This week brings two possible titans in the forms of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the latest eccentric comedic fantasy from Tim Burton, and Deepwater Horizon, Peter Berg's dramatic depiction of the titular 2010 disaster that caused numerous deaths and an unstoppable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So, silly creatures fighting against other silly creatures or emotionally manipulative real-life tragedy?
If you live on Planet Earth, you should know that most of the time the former will beat out the latter and that looks to be the case here. As the Friday box office number point out via Variety, Miss Peregrine's came in with $9 million, putting Burton's latest on track for a $26 million opening weekend as compared to Deepwater Horizon's estimated $20 million. Deepwater Horizon took in a little over $7 million on Friday, which is not great news considering the film's budget was well over $110 million.
Still, Deepwater Horizon is doing quite well compared to the long-delayed Masterminds, Jared Hess' inexplicably delayed comedy starring the likes of Kristen Wiig, Zach Galifianakis, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Owen Wilson, and Jason Sudeikis. The comedy received largely negative reviews and seems to be dead on arrival at the multiplex, despite being one of the more fascinating comedies to see release recently. Hess' movie didn't even make it into the top five on Friday, as The Magnificent Seven took the third place with $4.65 million and Storks took fourth with $3.1 million.
In the fifth spot, of course, is Sully, Eastwood's take on the aftermath of the Miracle on the Hudson, which came in at $2.3 million by the end of Friday. It's nice to see Burton getting attention, especially considering that the movie, for its many faults, has all the enticing visual hallmarks of a Tim Burton movie, but the success of Sully is that rarest of all birds: a great movie made by a big studio that's found a wide and enraptured audience.
