In a slow January weekend, STXfilms reaped the box office spoils and notched its first ever No. 1 opening since launching their theatrical arm in August 2015 with The Upside posting $19.59M

Rivals have often knocked STX for improperly dating their titles. Well, who is laughing now?

STX's distribution of Lantern Entertainment's Upside is unexpectedly beating Warner Bros/DC's Aquaman which hooked a $17.3M fourth weekend, -44% for a running domestic total of $287.9M. The Neil Burger-directed dramedy is soaring significantly past its industry tracking ($10M-$14M). It's quite possible by tomorrow morning, The Upside ups its three-day take to $20M. Saturday's ticket sales of $7.9M were up over Friday's $7M by 14%.

Some wondered why STX wasn't releasing this movie next weekend over MLK, which has been a lucrative period for Kevin Hart fare. Others wondered why the studio didn't qualify the film for Oscars after a great response at its TIFF 2017 premiere. Really, no regrets here by STX. They knew to stay out of the way of Universal/BVI/Blumhouse's Glass next weekend (better to play into that movie, which could open to $54M-$70M).