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Box Office Report: Religious film opens strong but ‘Compton’ wins again

Posted in: Box Office Report, General  |  By: John Hanlon  |  August 31st, 2015
War Room Poster

This past weekend, healing Zac Efron, Owen Wilson and a prayerful cast duked it out at the box office. Despite the odds, the prayerful cast beat the other two new theatrical releases and opened at number 2 at the box office behind only Straight Outta Compton.

Straight Outta Compton won its third weekend in a row with an estimated weekend gross of 13 million dollars.

Here are the estimated weekend grosses of the top five films (according to BoxOfficeMojo.com):

1. Straight Outta Compton — $13.2 million
2. War Room — $11.0 million
3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation — $8.3 million
4. No Escape — $8.2 million
5. Sinister 2 — $4.6 million

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the big winners at the box office and a few of the big losers.

Loser:  We are your Friends

Zac Efron’s new drama We are your Friends crashed at the box office this weekend opening outside of the top ten. In fact, the feature about a hustling D.J. and his friends actually had one of the worst opening weekends of all time for a major release. With an opening weekend of 1.8 million, it looks this WB feature didn’t have the friends it thought it did.

Winner: War Room

Movies like War Room are considered surprise hits because entertainment reporters sometimes underestimate the audience for faith-based films. Despite lacking star power (and critical support), the film opened at number 2 at the box office, beating Efron’s latest and the newest entry from Owen Wilson.

 Loser: Sinister 2

In its second weekend, Sinister 2 took a big hit at the box office dropping off by more than 55%. Considering its budget, the film is still profitable but with critics and with viewers, the film has been a major letdown in the series.

Winner: Straight Outta Compton

August is usually a slow month for movies but not for Compton, which has now grossed over one hundred million dollars on– according to BoxOfficeMojo.com– a budget of twenty-eight million dollars. With numbers like these, audiences can expect more musical biopics to come.

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