On what will likely wind up being one of the slowest weekends of the year, Warner Brothers sleeper hit Crazy Rich Asians aims to repeat in first against newcomer The Happytime Murders. Meanwhile, Global Road will open their family targeted adventure film in over 1,700 locations, while Bleecker Street is debuting the Papillon remake into moderate release.

Following last weekends impressive five day start, Crazy Rich Asians has continued to post very strong weekday numbers, indicating a strong hold in its second frame. Generally speaking, when a film consistently outperforms the updates that come in throughout the weekend, that’s a sign that word of mouth is boosting the numbers. That certainly seems to be the case for Asians, which could be looking at a second weekend in the high teens.

STX is hoping to recoup after last weekends underperformer Mile 22, as they’re coming out of the gate with another R rated franchise hopeful in the form of The Happytime Murders. The puppet comedy was originally conceived nearly a decade ago, and was in development hell for the majority of that time. Originally pitched as a darker noire type film, the final product instead leans much more comedic. Unfortunately, reviews have not exactly been kind, giving the McCarthy vehicle a weak 26%.

The Happytime Murders is another in an interesting trend of larger releases from smaller independent studios that have been popping up in recent years; some like Entertainment Studios, which throw tens of millions of dollars at projects that tend to be no more than a blip on the radar, A24, which has started to gain their footing with a number of strong nationwide performances, and the aforementioned STX, which has seen a number of moderately budgeted films that simply fail to break out. Murders carries a rather steep $40 million price tag, not to mention a rather extensive marketing campaign that has come about in the last few weeks. It would seem the studio is attempting to capture the success of Sausage Party from a few years ago, but that film had much better reviews and less than half the production cost. With tracking at just $14 million, it’s hard to see how that would wind up profitable.

Speaking of struggling independent studios, next up is A.X.L from the struggling Global Road, which was just announced to be in a financial crisis after such flops as Hotel Artemis and Marshall. With this latest title tracking for a sub $2 million debut, there’s not much hope for it doing any significantly better.

Next up is Papillon, the remake of the famous prison break title starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek. Bleecker Street is yet another in the long list of small studios that have struggled with nationwide releases in the past few years, with a few Steven Soderbergh projects such as Logan Lucky and Unsane doing weak numbers in comparison to the scope of their releases. A 520 location release seems far too wide for the film which has received next to no marketing and middling reviews, and as a result it wouldn’t be at all surprising if it wound up under $1 million for the weekend.

Sony’s Sundance acquisition Searching will be released in 9 theaters this weekend, ahead of a nationwide expansion next weekend. Additionally, the Kubrick classic 2001: A Space Odyssey will be re-released in IMAX this weekend. It’s not uncommon for the premium format theaters to be repurposed around this time of year, as the late August to Labor Day frame is generally devoid of the IMAX-worthy blockbusters that begin to arrive in September, such as The Nun and The Predator.

Predictions

Crazy Rich Asians – $17.2 million The Happytime Murders – $12.5 million The Meg – $11.5 million Mile 22 – $6.8 million Mission: Impossible Fallout – $6 million

A.X.L – $1.8 million