'First Purge' Takes First Shot at Box Office With $9.3 Million Start on July 4

There was a big appetite among moviegoers to spend the Fourth of July watching the most political “Purge” film yet. Universal/Blumhouse’s prequel “The First Purge” opened on Wednesday to $9.4 million, which includes $2.5 million from Thursday previews. While the date was set in part as an ironic play on the film’s themes of corruption and violence in America, it was also done to give the film some time in theaters before the arrival of Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” which is ...