Box Office: Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Happytime Murders’ Slays $950,000 on Thursday Night

Melissa McCarthy’s “The Happytime Murders” opened with a moderate $950,000 at 2,500 North American sites on Thursday night.Stx Entertainment’s raunchy comedy has been forecast to launch in the $13 million to $15 million range at 3,224 locations this weekend.

That will likely leave “The Happytime Murders” in second place behind the sophomore frame of the romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians,” which will probably lead with about $18 million at 3,526 venues.The preview number for “The Happytime Murders” came in well above the $700,000 for McCarthy’s “Life of the Party,” which opened with $17.8 million on May 11-13 and finished with $52 million domestically for Warner Bros.“The Happytime Murders” is set in the underbelly of Los Angeles — a world where humans and puppets coexist — as McCarthy’s character, an Lapd detective, re-teams with her former puppet partner to solve a series of brutal murders.Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson and chairman of the Jim Henson Company,

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