Spiral Tops Box Office Again As Saw Franchise Hits Billion-Dollar Mark
There’s more good news as the theatrical industry continues to escape from the throes of the Coronavirus pandemic. Not only has
Spiral: From the Book of Saw repeated at the top of the domestic box office, but now that the ninth installment in the long-running series has hauled in over $22 million globally,
Saw itself is a billion-dollar franchise.
The combined budgets for all nine entries to date come to less than $100 million, so
Saw is also one of the most profitable brands around. Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson’s fresh spin on the material retained first place with a haul of just over $4.5 million, which isn’t great even by the standards of the COVID-19 era, but two weeks in first is still a solid return.
As expected,
Spiral topped the domestic box office over the weekend, although a haul of $8.7 million was lower than a lot of analysts had been expecting, even with the Coronavirus pandemic still forcing the theatrical industry to operate at limited capacity. The latest installment in the long-running series boasted Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson all over the marketing, so it’s a little bit of a surprise that it didn’t manage a double figure debut.
The ninth chapter in the
Saw franchise probably won’t show much in the way of legs, either, with a tepid critical response leaving it on a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 38%, although the fans are clearly more appreciative as the audience score is currently a substantially higher 76%.