‘Sully’ tops at box office: America needs its hero

The well-reviewed movie, a dramatization of the 2009 emergency landing by Capt. Chesley Sullenberger of a jet on the Hudson River, connected primarily with older moviegoers, who are usually reluctant to come out on hoopla-filled opening weekends.

The new film “Sully” dominated the box office race this weekend, debuting with $35.5 million in ticket sales in the US and Canada, according to figures on Monday.

The studio’s distribution executive Jeff Goldstein said: “The movie sells itself”. “The film is such a patriotic story of heroism”. In fact, according to comScore’s PostTrak audience survey, 39 percent turned out because of Hanks. That makes it the biggest September opening for WB, highest post-Labor Day opening, and the best September opening for a drama. “It’s not about opening weekend”. That’s a solid debut for a film that only $10M to produce; however, don’t expect it to have strong sophomore frame since it now has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the audience only gave it a “B’ CinemaScore”. The film, which co-stars Regina Hall and Glenn Morshower, opened with an estimated $15.0 million in the U.S. And yet the film performed well. It likely won’t have a lot of legs to it but it’ll do well overall, though less than the similarly themed film The Perfect Guy, which arrived the same time previous year and did $25 million for its opening. “I will say, when you consider the normal multiplier on a horror thriller, this goes way beyond the norms”.

At number 5 Chinese film The Age Of Shadows makes its debut with $16 million, very good consider the single territory it is released in.Also new at number 7 this week is When The Bow Breaks which grosses $15 million from its USA release.

The superhero film, which has the twist of making villains the main characters, has now made more than $307 million in North America alone.

“Don’t Breathe” and “Suicide Squad” drop two spots, falling to the third and fourth places respectively.

In fifth place for the weekend is newcomer “The Wild Life”, which brought in an estimated $3.4 million domestically. “Hell or High Water”, $2.6 million ($1.3 million international). 10. On top of that, Sully’s domestic IMAX run brought in $4 million. A $15 million debut weekend easily covered its $10 million budget with enough left over to throw a party for the producers to thumb their noses at critics, many of whom ignored the movie altogether while those that gave it a rating panned it to the tune of 0% at Rotten Tomatoes.