The War with Grandpa topples Tenet at the weekend box office

De Niro makes more dinero than Tenet!

It was just a matter of time before a different movie settled in at the top of the box office, and the comedy THE WAR WITH GRANDPA took over with an estimated $3.6 million for the weekend.

The movie had the dubious honor of being the lowest-grossing #1 debut weekend in more than three decades (Sigourney Weaver's 1988 drama GORILLAS IN THE MIST previously held that distinction).

Led by Robert De Niro, the PG-rated family feature was released on 2250 screens after sitting on a shelf for a while — it was originally planned for release in February 2018 from Harvey Weinstein's Dimension Films, so you can probably guess what happened after that…

Directed by Tim Hill (ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN), the adaptation of Robert Kimmel Smith's novel also features Uma Thurman, Christopher Walken, Rob Riggle, Jane Seymour and Cheech Marin.

Critics didn't care much for the prank battle between young Oakes Fegley and his elderly nemesis, giving the movie a 25% average on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 36. You can check out the JoBlo review HERE.

After holding the number one position for five weekends, filmmaker Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller TENET finally gave way and moved to second place with $2.1 million.

The PG-13 Warner Bros. movie with John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki now has a domestic total of $48.3 million and $323 million worldwide (on a $200 million reported cost).

Disney's reissue of the popular PG-rated 1993 horror-comedy HOCUS POCUS was in third place, adding another $1.1 million to its running domestic total, now at $42.3 million including its original release.

In fourth place was PG-13 X-MEN spinoff THE NEW MUTANTS with $685,000 million for a domestic total of $21.9 million and $42.9 million worldwide. The R-rated Russell Crowe thriller UNHINGED followed in fifth with $660,000, driving to a $19.3 million domestic total and $29.8 million worldwide.

In sixth place, Disney once again dipped into seasonally appropriate catalog titles and sent the Oscar-winning 2017 Pixar movie COCO back onto 1900 screens.

The PG-rated animated adventure about a boy visiting the Land of the Dead earned $603,000 for the weekend, taking it to a domestic total of $210.3 million and nearly $800 million worldwide.

Liam Neeson's latest doesn't arrive on screens in the US until October 16, but the PG-13 crime thriller HONEST THIEF reached 170 locations in Canada over the weekend and landed in seventh place with $320,000.

After that, the list was filled out with the R-rated Jim Caviezel political thriller INFIDEL, the re-release of Tim Burton's 1988 comedy BEETLEJUICE and filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg's R-rated horror-thriller POSSESSOR (retitled POSSESSOR UNCUT).

From here, things remain bleak on the release front. We'll get Liam Neeson's action movie HONEST THIEF next weekend, but the calender continues to fluctuate for major movies (not to mention the increasing problems for the theaters themselves). Denis Villenueve's anticipated DUNE has traveled from its original December 18 date all the way to October of 2021, and Disney has decided to give Disney+ viewers a Christmas gift with Pixar's SOUL. The next big movie to hit screens could be Ryan Reynolds' comedy FREE GUY on December 11, but… we'll see what happens.

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