A Quiet Place drowns out Ready Player One and Blockers at the box office

There’s nothing muted about A Quiet Place’s debut at the box office. Paramount Pictures’ high-concept horror movie is on track to earn an estimated $50 million from 3,508 theaters in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, exceeding expectations while unseating last week’s No. 1 movie, Ready Player One, and holding off fellow new release Blockers.

The strong start marks the second-best opening of the year (behind Black Panther) and comes as welcome news for Paramount, which has been struggling for hits lately. Directed by John Krasinski, who also stars alongside his wife, Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place follows a family living in silence in order to hide from creatures that hunt their prey by sound.

The film, which cost an estimated $17 million to make, received a warm welcome at South by Southwest last month and has garnered glowing reviews from critics. Moviegoers gave it a B-plus CinemaScore, a good grade for the horror genre. A Quiet Place is also poised to add about $21 million from international markets this weekend.

Coming in second place is Warner Bros. and Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure Ready Player One, with an estimated $25.1 million from 4,234 North American theaters. That figure represents a modest 40 percent decline from last week’s bow and brings the film’s domestic total to about $96.9 million through 10 days.

Overseas, Ready Player One has earned about $294.4 million, putting its worldwide total at an estimated $391.3 million.

Based on the novel by Ernest Cline (who cowrote the script with Zak Penn), Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan as a teenager in a dystopian future who embarks on a digital quest to win dominion over the Oasis, an immensely popular virtual-reality world infused with ’80s and ’90s pop culture nostalgia. The cast also includes Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, and Mark Rylance.

Also off to a promising start after premiering at SXSW is Universal’s R-rated comedy Blockers, with about $21.4 million, good for third place and in line with industry projections. It will add about $10.7 million internationally.

Heralding the directorial debut of Kay Cannon, the screenwriter known for penning the Pitch Perfect films, Blockers centers on a trio of parents who try to stop their daughters from losing their virginity on prom night. The cast includes Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, John Cena, and Kathryn Newton.

Reviews have been largely positive for Blockers, and audiences gave it a solid B CinemaScore.

Rounding out the top five are Disney’s superhero smash Black Panther — which just passed Titanic to become the third-biggest movie ever at the domestic box office — with an estimated $8.43 million, and Roadside Attractions’ faith-based hit I Can Only Imagine, with an estimated $8.356 million.

Arriving this weekend with smaller footprints were Entertainment Studios’ Chappaquiddick, about the fateful 1969 car crash that killed Senator Ted Kennedy’s passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, and derailed his presidential aspirations, and LD Entertainment’s sports drama The Miracle Season.

Chappaquiddick (starring Jason Clarke and Kate Mara) is on track to gross about $6.2 million from 1,560 theaters, putting it in seventh place, while The Miracle Season is on track for about $4.1 million from 1,707 theaters, putting it at No. 11.

And in its third weekend, Fox Searchlight and Wes Anderson’s stop-motion movie Isle of Dogs expanded to 554 theaters (up from 165), taking in an estimated $4.6 million and cracking the top 10.

According to ComScore, overall box office is down 2.1 percent year-to-date. Check out the April 6-8 figures below.

1. A Quiet Place — $50 million
2. Ready Player One — $25.1 million
3. Blockers — $21.4 million
4. Black Panther — $8.4 million
5. I Can Only Imagine — $8.4 million
6. Acrimony — $8.1 million
7. Chappaquiddick — $6.2 million
8. Sherlock Gnomes — $5.6 million
9. Pacific Rim Uprising — $4.9 million
10. Isle of Dogs — $4.6 million