“Sully” Sinks the Competition in Weekend Two

TOP 5

Even with a diverse slate of competition, none of the new films could even come close to Sully in its second weekend. Clint Eastwood's real-life drama about "The Miracle on the Hudson" fell a mere 37.2 percent, which in itself is a miracle. The Tom Hanks flick has already made $70 million, and seems destined for $100 million. That would make it only the fifth film Eastwood has directed to make it to that milestone.

Blair Witch, despite seemingly endless promotion – at least in the couple months since it was revealed that The Woods was actually a sequel to the 1999 phenomenon – could only come up with $9.6 million. That's less than the original did on its first wide weekend, and even less than the dreadful follow-up Book of Shadows did back in 2000. Given how big horror movies usually drop, this may not even pass the gross of Adam Wingard's debut You're Next, which made $18.4 million back in 2013.

Bridget Jones's Baby also proved audiences who loved a genuine phenomenon may not come back more than a decade later for a sequel. This $8.2 million debut is even less than what the mediocre Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason made in its opening weekend in 2004, and that was on only 530 screens. It's likely to do much better overseas, especially in its native England.

Snowden, as I predicted, utterly failed to capture the imaginations of American audiences. It didn't flop as hard as another biopic about a controversial leaker of government documents (the Julian Assange flick The Fifth Estate), but that's really bad, especially for an established director like Oliver Stone. Maybe it's time to accept that Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn't a box office draw. (And maybe audiences need to rethink that, since he's one of the best actors around.)

Outside the top 5:

• This Weekend's Indie Champ: Eight Days a Week, about the narrow window when the Beatles actually toured. The Ron Howard-directed doc averaged $7,243 on 85 screens. Hulu will begin streaming the film this week.
• Don't expect any future Oscar buzz for Eddie Murphy after the lackluster debut of Mr. Church. The movie about a girl's kindly caretaker had been projected to score Murphy another nod for Best Supporting Actor. But now that it made less than half a million dollars while playing on more than 350 screens, that's not going to happen.
• After multiple delays, Hillsong: Let Hope Rise finally hit theaters. The concert doc about the mega-popular Christian group from Australia only made a so-so $1.3 million on about 800 screens.

Next week: The Magnificent Seven comes out in full force to blow things up. Given the immense popularity of both Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, I would be shocked if this didn't make at least $35 million. Storks isn't going to do so hot, especially since there will be a lot of other animated flicks this fall.