'Never Let Go' Never Gets Much Traction at Box Office With $4.5M Debut

Halle Berry leads the cast of survival thriller "Never Let Go."Photo byLionsgate

Never Let Go struggled to tie down an audience this weekend in theaters.

The survival thriller about a family tethered together with rope, opened in fourth place at the box office after ringing up an estimated $4.5 million, media tracking Comscore reported Sunday.

The Halley Berry-starring film played in 2,667 locations in the U.S. and Canada, for a per theater average of $1,687.

Berry plays “Momma,” a woman trying to keep her twin sons — played by Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins — safe in a world she believes is filled with evil. The only way to protect themselves from outside forces is to stay tethered together with a long rope and small whistles to call for help.

Related: Halle Berry Says 'Never Let Go' Will Keep Audiences Guessing

In addition to starring in the film, the Oscar-winning actress served as a producer alongside director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, Crawl).

At the red carpet premiere on Sept. 16, Berry said she worked tirelessly to find the right young actors to play her twin sons.

“I fought really hard for these boys, that was really my big producorial role in this film, to get the cast right because it’s me and just two young performers and so I went to that and fought really hard to not settle, but to keep looking until we found the right boys,” she explained.

The thriller cost a reported $20 million to produce, plus marketing costs, and will have to rely on word of mouth to turn a profit. Although it should be noted that the people who saw the film gave it an underwhelming "C+" CinemaScore.

Critics handed the film a 63 percent score out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus saying it has "anxiety-inducing atmosphere and a committed performance from Halle Berry, although audiences will have to let go of some storytelling expectations to enjoy the ride."

With Never Let Go debuting in fourth place, Warner Bros. release Beetlejuice Beetlejuice held onto the top spot. The fantasy sequel from director Tim Burton brought in another $26.0 million this weekend. As of Sunday, the film's three-week domestic total is $227 million.

Paramount and Hasbro's Transformers One opened in second place with $25.0 million from 3,978 theaters. That was a slow start for the animated film, which had a reported production budget of over $75 million.

The film follows the untold origin story of fictional characters Optimus Prime and Megatron. The star-studded voice cast of the first completely CG-animated Transformers movie includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm.

Universal and Blumhouse horror thriller Speak No Evil earned $5.9 million in its second weekend for a third place finish. To date, the film has brought in $21.4 million domestically.

As mentioned, the horror film Never Let Go was fourth with $4.5 million.

Deadpool & Wolverine rounded out the top 5 in its 9th weekend with $3.9 million. Through Sunday, the Marvel superhero saga has earned $627.2 million in North America. Abroad, the film has brought in $627 million, for a staggering global total of $1.31 billion.

Check out the box office chart below from Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian.