Weekend Box Office: Audiences Stay Out of ‘The Kitchen’, Embrace ‘Scary Stories’

The weekend box office results are in, and things didn’t turn out so well for The Kitchen. The Elisabeth Moss, Melissa McCarthy, and Tiffany Haddish comic adaptation flopped, as the paltry summer movie season keeps on devouring non-franchise films whole. The only new title to do well over the weekend was the horror adaptation Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which came in second to reigning box office champ Hobbs and Shaw.

If there’s one lesson we all learned during the summer movie season, it’s that audiences just don’t give a damn about movies that aren’t either superhero flicks or high-profile sequels. Not even brand awareness can save the day. Case in point: Dora and the Lost City of Gold, a big-screen adaptation of Dora the Explorer, failed to draw a crowd, took in a lackluster $17 million and came in at number 4 on the box office charts. Don’t expect a franchise anytime soon.

The biggest box office loser of the weekend, though, was The Kitchen. The thriller, which was about mob wives building a criminal empire of their own, originally seemed like it would be a high-profile project, especially since it drew big names like Elisabeth Moss, Melissa McCarthy, and Tiffany Haddish. But Warner Bros. seemingly abandoned the film weeks before its debut, cutting down on marketing to the point where The Kitchen had barely a presence at all. The end result: $5.5 million.

The box office news wasn’t entirely dire, though. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the horror film geared towards younger audiences, scared-up $20.8 million, bringing it to second place. Hobbs and Shaw held first place for the second week in a row, while The Lion King held fast at number three. In fourth place: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which – as Exhibitor Relations reports – made Tarantino’s latest “the first film of the summer not based on pre-existing IP to hit $100M.” That’s great for Tarantino but paints a sorry picture of the box office landscape at the moment.

Summer is winding down, and we’re about to hit the dumping ground period – the dog days of August where studios dump the films they’re not very confident about. The Angry Birds Movie 2, which opens today rather than the weekend, will likely do good business. But come Friday, audiences will be facing releases of 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, Good Boys, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette – none of which seem poised to break the bank.

Here’s the current top 10 films at the box office, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

2. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

3. The Lion King

4. Dora and the Lost City of Gold

5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

6. The Art of Racing in the Rain

7. The Kitchen

8. Spider-Man: Far from Home

9. Toy Story 4

10. Bring the Soul: The Movie

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