The Addams Family managed to scare up a pretty solid opening weekend, earning $30 million, Box Office Mojo is reporting. While it wasn’t nearly enough to eclipse Joker for the top spot during its second weekend, it easily beat all newcomers, landing in a very healthy second place.
The opening was a relief for United Artists, which has been struggling badly financially lately. In two days, Addams outdid the entire box office gross of their Missing Link from earlier this year. United Artists shared distribution duties for Addams with MGM, with the two studios having a history of working together on the James Bond series.
Addams wasn’t especially well-received by critics, with the movie scoring a 40% “freshness” rating at press time. Of course, part of this may have had to do with a ridiculously late review embargo which wasn’t lifted until just before the film opened. Still, bad write-ups have very little impact on these sorts of films, and with Halloween still two weeks away, Addams should be able to have some staying power, even as it faces off against Disney’s curiously timed Maleficent sequel this Friday.
Meanwhile, Abominable continued to have a “fine” box office run, even as its gross so far has to be less than Universal and DreamWorks were hoping for. This would especially be the case in China, where the movie has grossed only $11 million to date despite being a co-production with them. Kung Fu Panda, this ain’t. The good news is that Abominable carried a reasonable price tag of $75 million, something it will easily be able to turn into a profit once it reaches the home video market.
Final figures are due this afternoon.