'Crazy Rich Asians' is making crazy big money: $111 million and counting
LOS ANGELES – "Crazy Rich Asians" isn't slowing down at the box office, even in its third weekend in theaters.
Studios on Sunday say the romantic comedy, based on the books by Kevin Kwan, has topped the domestic charts again. The film added an estimated $22.2 million through Sunday, down only 10 percent from last weekend. To date, the film has grossed nearly $111 million from North American theaters, passing the lifetime domestic total of Amy Schumer's 2015 "Trainwreck," one of the last big studio rom-com success stories.
Should the pace hold through Monday, "Crazy Rich Asians" could also have one of the biggest Labor Day weekends ever. The existing four-day Labor Day record sits with 2007's "Halloween" which opened with $30.6 million. Some are projecting that "Crazy Rich Asians" could hit $30 million.
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"Crazy Rich Asians" easily won out over the holdovers and a few newcomers. The Nazi war crime film "Operation Finale," starring Oscar Isaac, made its debut in fourth place with $6 million. The sci-fi thriller "Kin," with Zoe Kravitz and Dennis Quaid, opened poorly with $3 million.
"The Meg" took second place with an additional $10.5 million, bringing its global total to $462.8 million. "Mission: Impossible – Fallout," in its fifth weekend, added $7 million for a third-place finish.
And the John Cho-led computer screen mystery "Searching" performed better than expected in its expansion to 1,200 screens, bringing in an estimated $5.7 million through Sunday and rounding out the top five.
"Pretty much every summer ends with a whimper ... that's very typical," says comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "But this is going to be a very strong Labor Day weekend."
The weekend closes out the fruitful 2018 summer movie season. Box-office tracker comScore is projecting that the summer box office will net out with around $4.39 billion, up more than 14 percent from last year when the summer didn't even hit $4 billion. Year to date, the box office is up 9.9 percent.
The success of "Crazy Rich Asians" also propelled an especially lucrative August, up almost 30 percent from last year. But September is likely to take a bit of a hit, Dergarabedian warns.
"We're going to see a downturn in the year-to-date advantage. Last year 'It' propelled a record-breaking September," he says. "I don't think there's anything of that magnitude this September."
Final numbers are due Tuesday.
