“Hotel Transylvania 3” Leads Box Office on Subdued Weekend

When a studio has a big hit outside the major movie months (the summer and holiday season), they sometimes move sequels into the summer in hopes of attracting an even bigger audience. But there's not a bigger audience for the Hotel Transylvania movies, it seems. Opening at No. 1 with an estimated $44.1 million, the third installment is right where its predecessors are. That's about what the last two films opened with when they debuted in September 2015 and 2012. It cruised to the top spot, but there was no record to be broken, on a very average weekend.

Ant-Man and the Wasp fell sharply into second place. Its 62 percent drop is on par with Spider-Man: Homecoming, but it will need to approach $200 million quickly, as it will sink fast once Mission: Impossible – Fallout opens in two weeks. A drop like this would be nothing to sneeze at if it had already opened north of $100 million, but a decline of this size might mean it could struggle to out-gross its predecessor.

Is America suffering from Rock Fatigue? It's certainly possible. With his third movie in seven months, Skyscraper debuted lower than Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Rampage, which both earned $35 million in their first three days. Even though Skyscraper is certainly entertaining and Dwayne Johnson is still his charming self, he may have reached the limit of how much of him audiences want. Incredibles 2 still held strong, adding to its already monster gross. It's now surpassed The Dark Knight on the all-time chart, though it likely won't cross $600 million. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom moved to fifth, and should end north of $400 million.

Outside the top 5:

• This Weekend's Indie Champ: Eighth Grade, Bo Burnham's well-regarded coming-of-age dramedy. The film scored rave reviews and the best debut of the year, averaging $63,071 on just four screens.
• Sorry to Bother You expanded strongly, jumping all the way to No. 7. It made $4.2 million in its second weekend.
• Shock and Awe caused neither this weekend. Rob Reiner's latest political drama sank like a stone. Despite a strong cast, it made only $41,000 total on 100 screens.

Next week:

It's a showdown between a movie targeted at men and a movie targeted at women. Denzel's violent sequel to The Equalizer takes on the sunny sequel to Mamma Mia. The former debuted with $34 million back in 2014. The latter opened a decade ago with $27 million. Neither film necessarily needed a sequel, but both could prove to be big hits. So I'll say it's a photo finish, with The Equalizer 2 at No. 1 with $30 million and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again right behind with $28 million.