‘Miss Peregrine’ outsmarts ‘Deepwater Horizon’ at the box office

Will “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” have a fairy-tale ending at the box office?

While its final chapter has yet to be written, Tim Burton’s fantasy film is earning pretty good grades at the multiplex so far. The picture about a group of extraordinary children collected $9 million on Friday, according to an estimate from distributor 20th Century Fox. That means the movie is on track to gross around $27 million by weekend’s end — a so-so start, considering the picture cost the studio $110 million to make.

The weekend’s other big debut, “Deepwater Horizon,” lagged slightly behind in ticket sales Friday, with $7.1 million. The Lionsgate release likely will collect a decent $20 million during its first three days in theaters.

Based on Ransom Riggs’ popular young adult novel, “Miss Peregrine” has received mixed reviews from critics. Those filmgoers who saw the picture on opening day generally seemed to like it, assigning the movie an average grade of B+, according to market research firm CinemaScore.

The movie stars French actress Eva Green as a headmistress who runs an orphanage for gifted children with special powers. Burton’s last two releases, “Big Eyes” and “Frankenweenie,” were not big hits at the box office — neither grossing above $36 million domestically. His biggest success in the last decade was the modern-day adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” which collected over $1 billion worldwide in 2010. The filmmaker’s work has come under fire this week because of the lack of diversity in the director’s movies.

“Deepwater Horizon,” meanwhile, tells the story of the crew aboard the drilling rig that exploded off the coast of Louisiana in 2010, leading to the infamous BP oil spill. The film — which features a starry cast that includes Mark Wahlberg, Kate Hudson and Gina Rodriguez — has received positive marks from both critics and moviegoers alike. The movie currently has an 81% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an average grade of A- from those who saw it Friday.

Still, the movie has awhile to go until it will be considered a commercial success. According to Lionsgate, the movie cost at least $110 million to make after tax credits. And it may have trouble matching the success of director Peter Berg’s last film, 2013’s “Lone Survivor,” which made $125 million in the U.S. and Canada. The filmmaker’s next movie, the highly anticipated “Patriot’s Day” — about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing — is set to open in theaters in January.

The only other film that launched in multiplexes nationwide this weekend was “Masterminds,” the critically panned comedy from Relativity Studios. The bank heist flick, which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis, may debut with only $6 million. The movie originally was slated to be released last summer, but it had to be delayed as the Ryan Kavanaugh-led company filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood’s “Sully” will surpass the $100-million milestone at the box office this weekend. The movie, which sees Tom Hanks playing the heroic pilot who successfully landed a US Airways flight on New York’s Hudson River in 2009, is the biggest box office hit the star has had since 2013’s “Captain Phillips.” It’s also a win for Eastwood, even though it likely will not be nearly as profitable as his last film, the 2014 war tale “American Sniper,” which grossed nearly $550 worldwide.

amy.kaufman@latimes.com

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