LOS ANGELES, Jan 22 (Variety.com) – M. Night Shyamalans Split has turned into a horror hit with a surprisingly strong $40.2 million in its opening weekend at 3,038 North American locations.
Split, starring James McAvoy as a man with 24 different personalities, performed far above recent expectations for Universal and Blumhouse. It easily topped the 2015 launch of Shyamalans found-footage horror movie The Visit, which scored an opening weekend of $25.4 million.
Split doubled Vin Diesels launch of xXx: Return of Xander Cage, which is heading for a second-place finish for Paramount with $20 million at 3,651 sites in line with recent forecasts. Foxs historical drama Hidden Figures maintained its impressive performance in third with $16.3 million at 3,416 theaters for a domestic total of $84.2 million.
Michael Keatons biopic The Founder showed little traction for the Weinstein Company with a modest $3.8 million weekend at 1,115 locations.
Shyamalan produced and directed Split from his own script in which McAvoys multiple characters capture three young women and hold them hostage. The movie, which costs under $10 million, generated the fourth-highest opening for a Shyamalan title following Signs with $60 million, The Village with $50.7 million, and The Last Airbender with $40.3 million.
Split carries a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with McAvoys performance receiving strong reviews. Shyamalan is self-financing the project and re-teamed with horror specialist Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions after collaborating on The Visit, which grossed nearly $100 million worldwide on a $5 million budget.
Xander Cage stars Diesel as a skilled government operative character who debuted in the 2002 movie xXx. The film also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, and Nina Dobrev.
D.J. Caruso directs from a script by F. Scott Frazier, which centers on Diesels Xander Cage coming out of self-imposed exile in a race to recover a seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandoras Box.
Xander Cage has an $85 million budget with backing from Chinese companies Huahua Media and Shanghai Film Group, which limits Paramounts exposure to about 50%. Paramount and the two companies announced a three-year $1 billion co-financing deal on Thursday.
Hidden Figures, which won the first two weekends of 2017, held well with a 22% decline during the three days. The drama may be a major beneficiary from Tuesdays Academy Awards nominations.
Illumination-Universals fifth weekend of Sing led the rest of the pack in fourth with $9 million at 3,193 locations for a 33-day take of $249.4 million. Lionsgates awards contender La La Land finished a close fifth with $8.4 million at 1,865 sites to push its total to nearly $90 million.
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