Movie Monday: ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ Hypnotizes Box Office

Sometimes, earning a first-place win at the box office is less about movie magic and more about patience.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (the third in its franchise) brought in $21.3 million domestically and $54.2 million internationally. Though not too far behind its prequel films, that’s the lowest showing for any in the trilogy. Nevertheless, it’s the first movie in the franchise to earn the top spot: Now You See Me ($29.4 million) got run over by Fast & Furious 6 in 2013. And three years later, Now You See Me 2 ($22.4 million) got beaten by both The Conjuring 2 and Warcraft. So sure, Now You Don’t isn’t the best showing for the franchise, but that first-place win is no illusion.

If I had a nickel for every Stephen King book adaptation featuring a man who joins a deadly dystopian competition for money that appeared in theaters this year, I’d have two nickels (see: The Long Walk). I’m talking, of course, about The Running Man. The cash prize for this competition? $17 million in the U.S., and $11.2 million overseas.

Predator: Badlands bagged a kill worth $13 million this week. That’s good enough for third place, dropping it two spots from last week. And compared to some of last week’s other movies, it fell particularly hard: Badlands earned 67% less with American audiences as compared to last weekend. Its worldwide cume rests at $136.3 million.

Regretting You likewise fell two spots, from second to fourth. This weekend, it brought in $4 million; its worldwide total sits at $82.5 million. And horror flick Black Phone 2 rounds out the top five by calling in with $2.7 million, raising its global earnings to $127.7 million.

As for other new releases, audiences didn’t care to keep Keeper: The horror movie opened to $2.5 million, which is good enough for seventh place. Meanwhile, Muzzle: City of Wolves sounded more like a hound dog this weekend—crying about its debut at 24^th place. Granted, it was muzzled by its appearance in only 575 movie theaters. Still, the movie earned a measly $90,000—an average of $157 per theater of those who did choose to show it.