Godzilla dominated the weekend box office in the U.S. with an estimated $49 million in ticket sales.
The King of Monsters sequel easily bested Paramount’s Rocketman and Blumhouse’s Ma, which already earned back its low budget.
Rocketman failed to match Bohemian Rhapsody‘s opening weekend sales. In fact, Rocketman, starring Taron Egerton as Sir Elton John, took in less than half of Rhapsody‘s sales.
According to Variety.com, part of the problem were the homosexual scenes – which Elton insisted stay in the film. The raunchy scenes may have discouraged moviegoers from buying tickets.
The homosexual scenes were censored in Russia and certain territories where homosexuality is still banned. China refused to allow Rocketman to be shown in theaters at all.
Blumhouse’s B-Roll thriller Ma topped expectations with domestic ticket sales of $18.2 million on a shoestring budget of $5 million.
Ma stars Oscar winner Octavia Spencer as a middle-aged, socially awkward divorcee named Sue Ann, whose chance encounter with a group of teens will soon spell disaster for a small Ohio town.
The teenagers convince Ma to buy them beer, and she convinces them to drink freely in her unfinished rec room in the basement of her large house.
As it turns out, Ma has a hidden agenda for transforming her basement into an underage drinking hangout spot.
In high school, she was impregnated by Ben, father of Andy, the cutest boy in the group. In flashbacks, young Ma (Kyanna Simone Simpson) was bullied by the parents of the other teens.
Typical of the recurring pedo agenda in other recent Hollywood films, Ma flirts with young Andy (Corey Fogelmanis). But the fun and games end abruptly when Ma forces another teenage boy to strip naked at gunpoint, saying, “You think I’m Madea?”
Ma reunites Spencer with The Help director Tate Taylor and actress Allison Janney, who co-starred with Spencer in The Help.
Bold name actors Juliette Lewis and Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans) round out the cast.
