Neither birds nor Blair Witch nor Bridget Jones’s Baby could sink Sully. The mustachioed captain and his movie stayed aloft above the box office for the second straight weekend. Not too shabby, considering Sully’s real Miracle on the Hudson flight—from bird strike to touchdown—just lasted 208 seconds.
And the crown was never in question. Banking an estimated $22 million in North America, Sully more than doubled the take of second-place Blair Witch, bringing its total payload to a tidy $70.5 million. Yeah, Warner Bros. probably doesn’t mind that sort of excess baggage.
Blair Witch, meanwhile, got lost in the box office woods. While most prognosticators were pegging the horror sequel to tally nearly $20 million this weekend (according to Box Office Mojo), Witch could only scare up around $9.7 million. ‘Course, keep in mind the original Blair Witch Project—the grandmommy of all found-footage fright fests—earned just $1.5 million its first weekend out and went on to claim $140.5 million domestically, so the tale’s not quite been told yet.
Bridget Jones’s Baby also came into the world rather ignominiously. It was showered with $8.2 million—enough to buy the best baby stroller ever, but nowhere near recouping the estimated $35 million it cost to make this Baby. The flick was, like Blair Witch, a threequel to an old, beloved property: The original Blair Witch Project was released in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration (1999), while Bridget Jones’s Diary popped out during the dawning of the George W. Bush era (2001). Perhaps the lesson is that if you must make a sequel, perhaps it’s best to do it within roughly the same decade of the original. (Unless you’re making a sequel to Finding Nemo, in which case you’ll be just fine.)
Snowden, the latest from Director Oliver Stone, snuck in at No. 4, snagging $8 million from unsuspecting audiences who were surely surveilled all the way to the snack counter. Meanwhile, Don’t Breathe continues to turn green, pocketing another $5.6 million to finish fifth.
The Christian concert movie Hillsong—Let Hope Rise finished 13th, collecting $1.3 million. Hey, it may not have made a lot of money, but at least it’s rich in plugs.
Final figures update: 1. Sully, $21.6 million; 2. Blair Witch, $9.6 million; 3. Bridget Jones’s Baby, $8.6 million; 4. Snowden, $8 million; 5. Don’t Breathe, $5.6 million.
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