OOP$

‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ Belly-Flops in Summer’s Worst Box Office Weekend

Horror-thriller “The Invitation” led the pack, scraping in a measly $7 million.

Left scrabbling for peanuts at the domestic box office this weekend were not one, not two, but three new films, all of which failed to make much of an impression with moviegoers. Sony’s The Invitation came out on top with $7 million—not much to write home about, as the poorly-reviewed horror-thriller constitutes the weakest first-place finish since last May. Bottoming out even further down the chart was Three Thousand Years of Longing, director George Miller’s first outing since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which pulled in $2.9 million (on a $60 million budget) on its opening weekend to finish in seventh place. Also opening—and promptly cratering—was the John Boyega bank-heist vehicle Breaking, which ended up at 13th place, with a grim box office result of just over $1 million. This weekend’s flotsam generated just $52.7 million in total, according to data platform Comscore—not just the worst numbers this summer, but the worst since February, according to Variety. Guess we’ll all just have to hang in there until everyone goes to see what all the fuss has been about when Don’t Worry Darling debuts next month.