Box Office: ‘Scary Stories’ Wins Friday Ahead of ‘Hobbs & Shaw,’ ‘Dora;’ ‘The Kitchen’ Flames Out

CBS Films and eOne’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark — adapted from the best-selling children’s horror book series by Alvin Schwartz — terrified the competition on Friday with an opening day haul of $8.8 million at the crowded August box office.

The Guillermo del Toro-produced Scary Stories is one of five new movies opening nationwide, and is the only one overperforming with a projected weekend gross of $20 million to $22 million. André Ovredal directed the tween- and teen-friendly movie, which earned a C CinemaScore, not uncommon for the horror genre.

Scary Stories‘ distributors are no doubt pleased it topped Friday’s chart, but the pic is expected to lose the overall weekend to holdover Hobbs & Shaw, the Fast & Furious spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham.

Hobbs & Shaw grossed $7.9 million on its second Friday for a projected sophomore outing of $25 million-plus. On Saturday, its ninth day in release, the Universal pic will zoom past the $100 million mark domestically.

Disney holdover The Lion King is tipped to come in No. 3 for the weekend behind Hobbs & Shaw and Scary Stories, followed by Paramount’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold, an adaptation of the beloved books and kids TV series about a fearless young explorer and her anthropomorphic monkey pal, Boots.

Dora, which nabbed an A CinemaScore, earned $6.5 million Friday for a projected $17 million opening. The movie was directed by James Bobin and stars Transformers actress Isabela Moner in the titular role, alongside Eugenio Derbez, Michael Pena and Eva Longoria. 

Dora looks likely to land in fourth place, followed by Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now in its third outing (like Hobbs & Shaw, the Sony film is also set to cross $100 million domestically).

Two new major Hollywood studio releases are getting doused: Fox 2000/Disney’s canine dramedy The Art of Racing in the Rain, and New Line/Warner Bros.’ The Kitchen, a female-fronted mob pic starring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss.

Racing in the Rain, which earned an A- CinemaScore, grossed $3.2 million Friday for a projected opening of $8 million to $9 million. An adaptation of the Garth Stein novel of the same name, the movie, directed by Simon Curtis, stars Milo Ventimiglia as a race car driver who navigates through life with his golden retriever, voiced by Kevin Costner. Amanda Seyfried also stars.

The Kitchen is all-out bombing, earning $1.8 million Friday for an opening in the $5 million to $6 million range — a career-worst for both McCarthy and Haddish. Critics have skewered the R-rated pic (its current Rotten Tomatoes is 21 percent), while audiences slapped it with a disappointing B- CinemaScore. The pic marks Andrea Berloff’s directorial debut.

Brian Banks, an indie film from Bleecker Street, is looking at a nationwide bow of $2 million-plus. Directed by Tom Shadyac, the drama stars Aldis Hodge and tells the true story of an Southern California football player who fought to clear his name and resume his career after he was falsely accused of rape and imprisoned.

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