‘Spectre’ back on top, Angelina Jolie’s ‘By the Sea’

The spy blockbuster, Spectre, blew the competition away at the foreign box office this weekend, racking up a massive $152.6 million to lead all comers. The third film directed by Jolie Pitt, who also wrote the script, “By the Sea” was made for a modest $10 million, so it won’t hurt Universal much, but proved surprisingly unappealing to moviegoers despite starring two of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

An exclusive screening of the 24th James Bond movie, Spectre took place in Lagos, Nigeria on Thursday, 5th November 2015 at the Genesis Deluxe Cinemas Lagos. Considering its continued success at the global box office – the film has already broken countless records and is on pace to set more in China – it is well on its way to surpassing its $245 million price tag. It follows similarly disappointing releases for Jolie in the director’s chair, after poorly reviewed war dramas “Unbroken” (which opened to $30.6 million last December) and “In the Land of Blood and Honey” ($19,000 in limited release in 2011).

Released during the Diwali holidays in India, the film starring Salman Khan in the dual roles of a happy-go-lucky guy looking for love and a prince, smashed the record for the biggest Bollywood opening ever, taking $27 million in four days. Both it and “Spectre” held strongly in their second weeks.

What movie did you catch this weekend?

Warner Bros.’ Chilean miner drama, “The 33”, earned a middling $5.8 million. Peanuts has banked $82.5M to date and may end up in the $150-160M range for Fox. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

Ticket sales saw a 49% decline from last weekend’s $73 million opening, which itself was down 21% compared to the 2012 opening of “Skyfall”, but the film still finished a healthy margin ahead of second place finisher “The Peanuts Movie”, which earned $24.2 million, also in its second week.

The animated hit Hotel Transylvania 2 became the highest grossing film of Adam Sandler’s career after this weekend’s estimated $2.4M (off 35%) raised the total to $165.2M surpassing the $163.5M of Big Daddy which had been the funnyman’s top film since 1999.

Finally, “My All American” was barely able to collect $1.4 million, which was not enough to make it to the top ten. The film has grossed $1.16 billion in total.