The combination of Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson reuniting for new R-rated buddy movie shenanigans was more than enough to see Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard top the box office this weekend, but it’s still one of the weaker frames of the last month, and just when it looked as though things were starting to rebound.
The action comedy sequel took the #1 spot with $11.6 million, but it did open on Wednesday instead of the typical Friday, and with a budget pegged to be around $50 million, it doesn’t have to do too much work to become profitable should it play well internationally. That’s definitely not out of the question, either, when the theatrical industry is in much better shape overseas, and the first installment wound up pulling in $101 million from markets outside the United States and Canada.
Elsewhere, A Quiet Place Part II continued to impressively extend its pandemic-era record domestic haul, with a third weekend of $9.4 million bringing it closer to the $150 million mark, a barrier that no movie has managed to break through since Bad Boys for Life was released almost eighteen months ago, so John Krasinski’s horror sequel is a smash hit whichever way you want to slice it.
Of course, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is only going to have a one-week reign at the top, with Fast & Furious 9 arriving this coming Friday. The latest chapter in the long-running franchise has already brought in close to $300 million globally since initially starting to roll out last month, and it’s guaranteed at this stage to smash all existing benchmarks set during the COVID-19 era. However, for the next seven days at least, Reynolds and Jackson can sleep safe in the knowledge that they’ve got the number one film in the country.