Jacob Hall

Is it safe to say that M. Night Shyamalan is back? He got his foot in the door a few years ago when The Visit opened to $25 million and went on to make $65 million against a budget of only $5 million, but with the release of Split, he’s officially sitting on the couch, eating your chips and drinking your beer. However, the same could not be said for xXx: Return of Xander Cage, which opened to more lackluster numbers.

Eventually, some movie will unseat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from its spot at the top of the box office charts. That movie will not be Hidden Figures, but man, it sure came close. Unless the final numbers shift ever-so-slightly, the drama about the African American women behind the math that helped launch NASA's first space missions came this close to unseating the massively successful blockbuster, taking the runner-up position by less than $1 million.

Consider this the calm before the storm. Next weekend, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will open and dominate both the box office and every headline, drowning out each and every other movie currently screening in theaters. In the meantime, Moana took advantage of this quiet window to win one more strong weekend while Office Christmas Party got off to a pretty good start.

This weekend’s box office was essentially the hangover from last week’s big holiday: the numbers are a little smaller, very little in the top 10 actually moved around, and the only new release didn’t even come close to threatening the dominion of Moana and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them may not have Harry Potter in its title, but the first entry in J.K. Rowling and David Yates’ spin-off series did Harry Potter numbers, dominating the box office and dethroning Doctor Strange from its position at the top of the charts. The film’s success came at the expense of the other newcomers, with The Edge of Seventeen and Bleed For This both stumbling in the bottom half of the top 1

It looks like the general public reacted to one of the most stressful weeks in living memory by flocking to the movies for a few hours of escape. Both Doctor Strange and Trolls, which debuted to solid numbers last week, held on strong. Arrival, the biggest newcomer of the bunch, also opened well, proving that it’s entirely possible to open in third place and still be a winner at the box office.

Like any new Marvel Studios movie, Doctor Strange was destined to take the number one spot at the box office  —  it was really just a question of how much it would make. Ultimately, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme surpassed expectations, topping the charts with an exceptional $84 million. But this was a strong weekend in general, with Trolls and Hacksaw Ridge performing well in second and third place.

Did anyone want a third Robert Langdon thriller? While The Da Vinci Code was a gigantic hit back in 2006, Angels and Demons made significantly less on both the domestic and international charts. And now, Inferno looks to answer that question with a painful whimper. No, nobody wanted a third Robert Langdon movie, and the film’s opening weekend makes that abundantly clear.

The trend of more adult-oriented films commanding the box office continued this week with the success of The Accountant, which effortlessly snagged the number one spot. But like The Girl on the Train and The Magnificent Seven before it, Ben Affleck’s latest was strong without being enormous, meaning that word of mouth in the weeks ahead will prove vital to it being a proper hit.

Despite new challengers of all genres, budgets and backgrounds, Sully remained number one at the box office this week, fending off the likes of Blair Witch, Bridget Jones’s Baby, and Snowden. In a month not traditionally known for producing many financial juggernauts, Clint Eastwood’s drama has emerged as something of a surprise smash, surpassing most expectations and showing no signs of slowing down quite yet.

Just when you thought September was going to be a slow month at the box office, Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks show up with Sully and make things interesting all over again. The feature film adaptation of the “Miracle on the Hudson” opened with huge numbers, benefiting from the pedigree of the talent involved and the lack of direct competition in the middle of a not-so-busy month.

September has arrived and this notoriously slow month at the movies often spells instant death for new releases. It certainly meant on a dead-on-arrival start for The Light Between Oceans and it spelled total disaster for Morgan, which debuted at number 17 on the box office charts despite being released into more than 2,000 theaters. But this week isn’t all doom and gloom! This slow week gave some much-needed breathing room to a few August releases while allowing Don’t Breathe to have a strong second weekend at the box office.