Things have been rough for Sony Pictures recently. As rival studios celebrated a summer of records, Sony’s major offers were titles like Aloha and Pixels. The latter, on the heels of That’s My Boy and Jack and Jill, put into question the wisdom of releasing more movies starring Adam Sandler. But in the last few days, both the studio and Sandler were vindicated, courtesy of Hotel Transylvania 2. The animated sequel, which Sandler produced, co-wrote and gave his voice to (along with Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez and Kevin James) had a very strong domestic opening: $47.5 million, a record for the month of September.
And it is doing pretty well overseas as well, where 32 territories have generated close to
$30 million, 7 of which are from Mexico alone.
A definite and much needed victory, but the international winner of the week is a Chinese comedy titled Lost in Hong Kong: it opened at $100 million, a very impressive amount to which we need to add an extra half-million dollars the movie managed to squeeze out of
27 select theaters in the U.S. Domestically second place went to The Intern, starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro as her new intern of the title. It opened with $18 million, a very strong number considering its target of older adults. The Nancy Meyers directed comedy had a successful debut overseas as well, with $12 million generated from
40 markets. With adults and females going for The Intern and families attracted by Hotel Transylvania, Everest should have been the main attraction for younger males. But even if this seems like the year in which Universal can do no wrong, the numbers for the mountain climbing drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin and Jason Clarke have been disappointing: as it expanded from 500 to 3000 theaters, Everest generated $13 million, for a domestic total of $23 million. Overseas, things look more promising: so far $73 million, with the $100 million global mark within reach.

Third place went instead to Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. It added $14 million, for a domestic total of $51.7 million. Internationally, the film keeps attracting horror fans in droves, with a foreign total of well over $120 million. To round up the top five domestically, we find Johnny Depp’s Black Mass: it did $11.5 million, for a North American total of
$42 million. It still has to open overseas, where most likely the movie will find more enthusiastic audiences.
Meantime the drug thriller Sicario keeps doing extremely well. Still in very limited release (59 theaters), it has reached $2.3 million domestically and next week will enter into the wide release game with very high expectations. It will face serious competition, because next week we will also witness the debut of Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk. And of Ridley Scott’s The Martian. Awards season has definitely started.
Lorenzo Soria