Following a relatively slow Super Bowl frame, the North American box office picked back up again over the long President’s Day weekend with the release of Sony’s Uncharted, which easily won the weekend with an estimated $44.16M through Sunday and $51M through Monday from 4,275 locations. Elsewhere, United Artists/MGM’s Dog also saw strong results while LD Entertainment’s The Cursed just barely scraped its way to a top 10 debut.

Starring MCU darling Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, Uncharted – based on the video game series of the same name – was positioned as an event-sized release by Sony, and Holland’s Spider-Man star power, particularly on the back of No Way Home’s massively successful run, certainly helped it do solid business this weekend despite mostly poor reviews. Based on its three-day debut, the film enjoyed the fourth-highest opening weekend of any video game adaptation in history, behind only Sonic the Hedgehog ($58.02M), Pokémon Detective Pikachu ($54.37M) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ($47.74M). Uncharted‘s opening number was boosted by IMAX screens, where it grossed an estimated $4M and $5M over the three-day and four-day, respectively.

“This result is yet another extraordinary testament to the appetite for the theatrical experience that Sony Pictures bet on,” said Sony Pictures president Josh Greenstein in a statement. “Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg are brilliant together. Thank you to our sister company, PlayStation, for their incredible partnership, and all the many people who worked so hard to bring this film to life in a big, theatrical way.”

Though reviews for Uncharted definitely finished on the “Rotten” end of the equation (it’s currently at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes), audiences seem to be enjoying it much more than critics. On RT, the film’s Audience Score currently stands at 90% from over 1,000 verified ratings. That suggests Uncharted could benefit from positive word-of-mouth in the weeks ahead – or at least until The Batman hits theaters on March 4 and inevitably blows all other releases out of the water.

Uncharted also had a strong start internationally, bringing in an estimated $55.4M from 62 markets. The film scored a No. 1 opening in 42 out of 47 new markets, including France, where it opened to $6.3M. Elsewhere, it debuted with $4M in Australia, $3.4M in Germany, $3.1M in Italy, $3M in South Korea, $2.4M in Mexico, $1.5M each in Japan and Brazil and $1.1M in Taiwan. Top holdover markets included the U.K., where it grossed an estimated $5.1M in its sophomore frame, down 20%, for a total of $16.4M. It also took in an estimated $2.9M in Russia (down 40%, $9.6M total) and $2.4M in Spain (down 32%, $7M total).

Second place went to Dog, which stars Channing Tatum (who also co-directs) as a U.S. Army Ranger charged with bringing the canine of a recently deceased servicemember to his funeral. Like Uncharted, the PG-13 heart-tugger performed at the high end of expectations this weekend, bringing in an estimated $15.14M over the three-day frame and $18.05M over the four-day from 3,677 locations.

While not aimed at younger children due to a slightly edgier tone than your typical Hollywood “dog movie,” Dog nonetheless arrives in a marketplace which is currently light on films of the heartwarming variety, which probably helped it achieve the better-than-expected result this weekend, particularly in the West, South and Midwest, which accounted for 75% of the film’s business collectively. Audiences skewed heavily older, with 73% over the age of 25, 53% over the age of 35 and 37% over the age of 45, while 54% was female. Reviews for Dog were mixed-to-positive, while its Cinemascore is an A- and on PostTrak, 84% of audience ratings were in the top two boxes, seeming to bode well for its long-range prospects.

The unstoppable Spider-Man: No Way Home rose one spot to third place in its 10^th weekend of release, giving its star Tom Holland two of the three top-grossing movies of the frame. The Sony/Marvel blockbuster – which officially surpassed Avatar’s lifetime tally last week to become the third highest-grossing film of all time domestically – took in an estimated $7.2M over the three-day (down just 4%) and $8.8M over the four-day, which would bring its total to an incredible $771.74M so far. Given its staying power, No Way Home conceivably has a shot at passing $800 million by the end of its run, though that would still put it short of Avengers: Endgame – currently the second highest-grossing film of all time in North America with $858.37M.

Last weekend’s No. 1 film, Disney/20^th Century Studios’ Death on the Nile, fell 51% to fourth place in its second weekend with an estimated $6.3M over the three-day frame and $7.2M over the four-day, which would put its 11-day total at $25M. That’s a steep drop-off in performance from its predecessor, Murder on the Orient Express, which finished its domestic run with $102.83M. Internationally, Death on the Nile grossed an estimated $19.8M from 50 territories over the three-day frame, lifting its international total to $49.9M and its global total to $74.9M through Sunday.

Another former No. 1, Paramount’s Jackass Forever, finished in fifth place in its third weekend with an estimated $5.24M over the three-day frame and $6.2M over the four-day, which would bring its total to $47.74M. That’s not far off from the first Jackass movie, which had $53.2M at the same point in its release (albeit at 2002 ticket prices). While it looks likely to finish its run as the lowest-grossing of the Jackass films, Forever is still an apparent win for Paramount given the film’s mild $10M budget.

Universal’s Marry Me dropped from third to sixth place in its second weekend with an estimated $3.68M over the three-day frame, down a substantial 54% from its debut, and an estimated $4.27M over the four-day. That would bring the Jennifer Lopez rom-com, which was made available day-and-date on the Peacock streaming platform, to $17.39M, putting it about 21% behind the star’s 2018 rom-com Second Act at the same point in its run. That film finished its domestic run with $39.28M, a total Marry Me looks more than likely to fall short of. That said, we have no way of knowing home many viewers watched the film on Peacock, making it difficult to engage in a direct comparison. Overseas, the film took in an estimated $5.2M from 67 territories, bringing its international tally to $19.13M and its worldwide total to $36.53M.

Sing 2 finished in seventh place with an estimated $2.84M over the three-day and $3.81M over the four-day in its ninth weekend, giving the leggy Universal/Illumination sequel $148.33M so far. Overseas, it grossed an estimated $10.33M from 66 markets for an international total of $184.72M and a global tally of $333.05M.

Eighth place went to Paramount’s Scream, which took in an estimated $1.96M over the three-day and $2.28M over the four-day in its sixth weekend for a total of $77.33M so far. Briarcliff’s Blacklight, which fell 49% to an estimated $1.77M three-day and $2.06M four-day in its second weekend, finished in ninth. Its total now stands at $7.36M.

The top 10 was rounded out by The Cursed, which came in with an estimated $1.72M over the three-day weekend and $1.95M over the four-day from 1,687 locations. The werewolf film, which drew fairly positive reviews for a horror pic, premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival under the title Eight for Silver.

SPECIALTY RELEASES

Oscars Best Picture nominee Licorice Pizza grossed an estimated $634k over the three-day and $767k over the four-day from 1,307 locations, down 670 locations from last weekend. The Paul Thomas Anderson comedy has $15.49M to date.

NEON’s The Worst Person in the World added over 200 locations in its third weekend and grossed an estimated $500k over the three-day frame and $594k over the four-day, bringing its domestic total to $1.2M.

Drive My Car, also a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars, added nearly 90 locations in its 13th weekend and took in an estimated $209k over the three-day frame and $248k over the four-day from 213 locations. That would bring the total for the Janus Films/Sideshow release to $1.57M.

Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates: February 18-20, 2022