【vintage erotice】

The vintage eroticeSixth Sense, Signs, The Last Airbender, and The Village. Those are the only four M. Night Shyamalan movies to have earned more domestically than Split.

The James McAvoy-led horror flick picked up an estimated $14.6 million in its third weekend, which was good enough for a three-peat at #1 in the domestic box office. That's a feat director M. Night Shyamalan hasn't pulled off since The Sixth Sense (which spent five weekends at #1).

The third weekend estimate brings Split's domestic take to $98.7 million, just edging out Shyamalan's cult hit, Unbreakable, which ended its 2000/2001 domestic run at $95 million. It's an impressive 17-day performance that only stands to improve.

Splitwill very likely surpass The Village($114.2 million) in the next few weeks, and it has an outside chance of catching up to The Last Airbender($131.8 million) as well. Signsand The Sixth Sense-- at $228 million and $293.5 million, respectively -- are safe.

Trailing at #2 for the weekend is Rings, Paramount's 12-years-later third entry in the Americanized J-horror series. The estimated $13 million domestic take falls just short of the original 2002 movie's $15 million opening.

Ticket sales don't tell the whole story, however. Ringspulled in only a couple million less than The Ring, but it did so with a much wider opening: 2,931 theaters for the new movie, versus 1,981 for the original.

The Ring Twofared even better in the beginning than the first movie -- it opened at $35.1 million in 2005 -- but its domestic run ended at $76.2 million, compared to The Ring's $129.1 million.

All of which is to say: early signs do not look good for Rings. Paramount took a gamble on reviving a series that's been gone for more than a decade, but the finished product doesn't seem to be resonating. And with an astonishingly low critics rating on RottenTomatoes, this one isn't likely to replicate the original's slow burn.

While it was a light weekend at the box office overall, it's worth noting that the weekend's top two winners are horror movies. A Dog's Purpose($10.8 million), Hidden Figures($10.1 million), and La La Land($7.5 million) fill out the rest of the top five, but audiences seem to be opting for visceral tension over feel-good storytelling.

All current box office estimates are provided by comScore and all historical data is sourced from Box Office Mojo.