In a shocking twist, the Downton Abbey movie has greatly overperformed this weekend at the domestic box office earning an estimated $31 million according to BoxOfficeMojo.
The film based on the PBS series was relatively under the radar for the last couple of months concerning the marketing campaign as competitors Ad Astra and Rambo: Last Blood seemingly dominated the TV and online advertising.
It feels like the American audience for Downton Abbey is much larger than anticipated, also, the film is likely drawing in older audiences that mostly aren’t targeted very often by major studio releases.
A hungry/established television audience for the film likely helped as well.
What’s also interesting is that the science fiction film Ad Astra’s $19.2 million starring Brad Pitt has a slight edge over gnarly action flick Last Blood’s $19 million, which suggests it could go either way for the number two slot. Rambo had been originally tracking the top-dog but very well could end up placing at number three.
Surprises are nice and especially when there is some legitimate competition during an opening weekend.
I’m curious how well the film will do over the next couple of weekends as Focus Features will certainly be happy with the results.
SOURCE: BOX OFFICE MOJO
