Los Angeles (AFP) - New Sony horror film "The Invitation" topped the North American box office this weekend despite extremely weak ticket sales of just $7 million, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.
Its estimated total for the Friday-through-Sunday period was the lowest first-place finish in 15 months and came on what Variety called a "catastrophically slow weekend," as Hollywood's healthy June and July numbers have dropped off in August.
Fortunately for Sony, "The Invitation" cost a mere $10 million to produce."Reviews are poor," analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said, "but that isn't necessarily a deterrent" in the horror genre.
Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Doherty star in the Dracula-inspired tale.
In second, up one spot from last weekend, was Sony's action-thriller "Bullet Train," at $5.6 million.Brad Pitt stars in the story of a perilous journey on a train overloaded with assassins.
Third place went to action-adventure "Beast," from Universal Pictures, at $4.9 million.Idris Elba stars as a recently widowed man who takes his daughters on safari only to be hunted by a huge rogue lion.
"Top Gun: Maverick" continued to defy gravity, drawing in $4.8 million in its 14th week out for a fourth-place finish.
But last weekend's top film, "Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero" from Crunchyroll, seems to have flown into a wall.Its ticket sales dropped 78 percent from its opening weekend, to a fifth-place showing of just $4.6 million.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
"DC League of Super-Pets" ($4.2 million)
"Three Thousand Years of Longing" ($2.9 million)
"Minions: The Rise of Gru" ($2.7 million)
"Thor: Love and Thunder" ($2.7 million)
"Where the Crawdads Sing" ($2.3 million)
