When an action movie is built with The Rock as its foundation, it is usually guaranteed to debut in the top spot at the box office.
But Dwayne Johnson’s latest big budget flick, Skyscraper, proved to be a towering disappointment, finishing in third place in its opening weekend with just $25.5 million.
That puts the Universal entry significantly behind this weekend’s other big debut, Sony’s animated sequel Hotel Transylvania 3, which opened with $44.1 million. Finishing in second was last week’s champ, Marvel’s Ant-Man and Wasp, which earned $28.8 million, a drop of 62 percent from its first-week total.
And what makes the performance of Skyscraper sting that much more: It couldn’t even beat Marvel’s smallest (literally and figuratively) property in its second week. This wasn’t exactly like losing to Black Panther.
To put it in wrestling terms: Johnson just got dropkicked by his opponents.
“While Dwayne Johnson’s star power is absolutely assured, he’s been quite prolific in his output of his movies over the last year and a half,” ComScore senior box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian told RealClearLife. “Sometimes that’s asking a lot for movie-goers.
“To be in third place in North America is quite surprising given Johnson’s track record.”
Johnson is considered one of the few bankable stars whose name on the marquee can single-handedly propel a tentpole movie to a first-place finish. The 46-year-old former wrestler recently opened an unheralded video game adaptation, Rampage, to a box office title, enjoys a top billing in the lucrative Fast and Furious franchise, and led Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle past the $400 million mark, despite opening a week after Star Wars: The Last Jedi. He doesn’t, however, have a perfect record. Last year, the R-rated comedy, Baywatch, also opened in with a disappointing third place finish during its debut weekend.
There were several potential factors that were tough for Skyscraper to scale— the most significant of which may have come from the other side of the world, in Russia.
“Maybe the World Cup had a bigger impact than we originally thought,” said Dergarabedian of the soccer tournament that just wrapped up on Sunday. “It’s a lot bigger than it was four years ago. Friends of mine who never even talked about it before were obsessed with watching games. That (timing) could have had an impact.”
A family film like Hotel Transylvania 3 would be less affected by the major sporting event.
Skyscraper also came out after a succession of huge event movies, including Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and two weeks before Mission: Impossible – Fallout. It’s asking a lot for movie audiences to keep shelling out on big movies every single weekend, even during the summer, and Johnson’s latest didn’t have the advantage of being linked to a preexisting property. “We’re at a point when blockbuster fatigue could be setting in,” said Dergarabedian.
Finally, critics generally panned the film, which had a 51 percent fresh rating on review aggregation site RottenTomatoes.com. This time, the buzz was not in The Rock’s favor.
Don’t feel too bad, though, as Johnson returns next year with four more movies, including a Jumanji sequel and the Fast and Furious spinoff, Hobbs and Shaw. He’s still got plenty of box office muscles to flex.
“Every star out there wishes he or she could have just a percentage of the success that Johnson has had,” said Dergarabedian.
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