Civil War is beating vampires, spies, and big gorillas in its second week at the box office

Alex Garland's guaranteed bummer is drawing in more eyes than new flicks Abigail and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Civil War is beating vampires, spies, and big gorillas in its second week at the box office
Civil War Photo: A24

Alex Garland’s new “What if all Americans decided to kill each other, but in a sort of unlikely, apolitical way?” thriller Civil War might have been divisive with critics, but it’s continuing to be a lot less ambiguous when it comes to ticket sales. Per Deadline, the A24 flick, now in its second week in theaters, is expected to beat new films Abigail and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare at the weekend box office.

Now, admittedly, it’s not beating them by a lot, at what’s expected to be a very sleepy weekend in theaters overall. But Garland’s movie, which stars Kirsten Dunst as a journalist traveling to Washington, D.C. to interview the President of an increasingly fractured U.S., is still set to bring in at least $11 million in domestic ticket sales. That puts it ahead of Abigail, the new vampire horror movie from Scream team Radio Silence, which will bring in roughly $10 million. (It actually did a bit better than Civil War on Friday, at $4 million versus $3.25 million, but is expected to fall off a bit harder as the weekend progresses.) And both movies will do better than Guy Ritchie’s new Ungentlemanly, which will likely open at No. 4 (at $8.7 million), falling behind Godzilla x Kong, which is now into its fourth week in theaters.

Garland’s movie has been defying expectations since it released last week, as audiences seem a bit more inclined than projected to settle in for what is, honestly, a pretty serious bummer of a movie. (Abigail, about a crew of kidnappers who find out they’ve bitten off more than they can handle when they snatch a young ballerina, is similarly on the grim side, albeit with a lot more comedy than Garland’s cavalcade of atrocities.) So, yeah, good news for the national bad mood, less good for breezy World War II spy adventures.

 
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