NEW YORK —”Blade Runner 2049″ had the pedigree, the stars and the stellar reviews. But even though the highly touted sequel had everything going for it, something didn’t click with audiences.
The big-budget, handsomely crafted sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic opened surprisingly weak at the North American box office. According to studio estimates Sunday, “2049” grossed $31.5 million, a poor start for a movie that cost at least $150 million to make.
The problem “Blade Runner 2049” ran into is clear from opening-weekend data. The audience was overwhelmingly male (71 percent) and over the age of 25 (86 percent). The movie, starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, simply failed to pull in moviegoers beyond fans of the 1982 original.
The opening was a blow most of all to Alcon Entertainment, the production company that split the film’s cost with Sony Pictures. Warner Bros., which released the original and maintained rights for any follow-ups, distributed domestically.
The Kate Winslet-Idris Elba adventure romance “The Mountain Between Us” debuted in second place with $10.1 million. The 20th Century Fox film, which cost $35 million to make, chronicles the budding affection between two strangers whose charter plane crash lands in the mountains.
The horror hit “It” followed in third place with $9.7 million in its fifth week. The Stephen King adaptation has made $603.7 million worldwide.
– From news service reports
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