Weekend Estimates by Reshelled Klady
The box office oddities keep on keepin’ on….
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will pass the domestic gross of last summer’s GI Joe reboot with The Rock sometime during the week and is now pretty much assured to push Neighbors out of the summer Top 10, leaving only Guardians as a domestic Top 10 original.
Guardians of the Galaxy will be the #1 domestic grosser of the summer, but could miss the Top 5 worldwide and not hit $300m domestic.
Let’s Be Cops is a certifiable hit, whether critics like the notion or not. For perspective, the only Lorne Michaels-produced comedy that opened as well or better in 5 days was Mean Girls… and only by $600,000. To be fair, a lot of LM’s hits were many years ago. But this ain’t no MacGruber or Hot Rod. It is the 2nd cheapest studio release of the summer (Fault… also from Fox) and it will make reasonably good money, even with minimal international revenue.
Expendables 3 is waiting on international. It has been pointed out that the leak of the film could have damaged the opening. I say 15% (which ain’t nothing) or less. The second film dropped too. But this one feels like the clever gimmick Stallone came up with is now a parody of itself and the audience knows it. Self-parody is a genre killer.
The Giver is more weak sauce, reminding us that the hit YA franchises are not a gimme.
Boyhood is holding strong with a nice expansion.
Universal missed with Get On Up, but The Purge: Anarchy has now out grossed the original both domestically and internationally. Like Tammy, it was written off too fast and too intensely this summer.
On the indie side, The Trip To Italy is the strongest new release. Nice (if not overwhelming) numbers for Frank, Life After Beth, and Yves Saint Laurent.
Saw GotG again, this time in IMAX 3D. It’s been awhile since there was a movie that was such a fun experience.
“Expendables 3 is waiting on international. It has been pointed out that the leak of the film could have damaged the opening. I say 15% (which ain’t nothing) or less. The second film dropped too. But this one feels like the clever gimmick Stallone came up with is now a parody of itself and the audience knows it. Self-parody is a genre killer.”
who thought expendables 1 was clever? it was a horrid film. filled with missed opportunities. and this coming from someone who loved “RAMBO” anyway, it was already a self parody on the first run. why is no one talking about the pg-13 vs r difference? that’s what’s making me skip #3.
I walked out of Let’s Be Cops. I can’t recall the last movie I did that during. It was horribly unfunny. I think they’ll be a big drop .
Not “Ex-Len-dables”?
Nick’s right: The Expendables was a parody to start with. There may be some truth to #3 being more a parody of itself than the 80s action flicks the series started out poking fun at. But you can’t really call it a “genre killer” — totally different situation from the one you’re describing.
I think it’s more likely that the series just isn’t very good, and audiences got tired of it failing to deliver.
(That said, I have a weakness for the series, just because I think it’s great to have its huge throwback cast all piled into one place. But it’s really more the idea of the series that appeals, rather than its execution. They got Chuck Norris right in #2, though — good stuff.)
Wouldn’t it be wicked nice if Stallone could have gotten Scorsese to do something with this cast. The possibilities are endlessly good.
On the subject of Frank and “challenging” indies, I’ve noticed that a lot of cinephiles and even some critics are completely writing that film off as a gimmick or quirky nonsense without even having seen it. This, despite the fact that it’s getting good-to-great reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker, NYMag, Film Comment, The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and The Guardian. And there’s basically no in-depth discussion of it on Twitter among the people I follow.
It’s kind of a shame, because there are shades of Hal Ashby in that movie’s humor, it’s more an extremely smart deconstruction of quirk than an embrace of it, and it features a uniformly excellent cast with one of the most original performances of the year.
Sam: I was disappointed in the use of Chuck Norris in EXPENDABLES 2. All he did was shoot a gun. Not even one roundhouse kick. Of course I understand that he’s in his 70s now, and maybe has to much self-respect to use a stunt-kicker, but still.
I’m one of the people that read a little bit about “Frank” earlier this year and wrote it off as a who cares, but it has slowly worked its way up to being near the top of my Must See list since then. Fassbender alone looks like a treat in it.
Frank is the bomb … great perfs all the way around, great cast … the film uses social media graphics throughout, some of the links actually work … you never see Fassie, keeps the mask on the whole time … he describes his facial looks to others “shy smile” etc. … (you see his face briefly at the end) … one sequence was shot at sxsw
Hate to sound like a dick, but in what universe is NINJA TURTLES an “original?”
One number that GotG is chasing that’s interesting, at least to me: MAN OF STEEL domestically. If GUARDIANS tops it, it’ll make it the #1 comic book movie stateside not toplined by Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr or Christian Bale.
Worldwide, topping the first two IRON MAN movies and THOR 2 seems doable. All comes down to China and Japan. You get the feeling GotG is right up Japan’s alley.
Note to studio execs: If you want material, children’s drawings can be had for next to nothing. Base your big movies on them and no one will tell the difference, but the profit margins will be bigger.
Frank seems good though. Hope it gets a Norwegian release
It looks like ‘Guardians’ will be the top grossing movie this summer.
Quick question Dave: Out of curiosity, historically, has an August release ever been the #1 movie of the summer?
“EtGuild2 says:
Worldwide, topping the first two IRON MAN movies and THOR 2 seems doable. All comes down to China and Japan. You get the feeling GotG is right up Japan’s alley.”
It may be a hit in China, but Japan is very selective about turning out for Hollywood action blockbusters these days. Among superheroes, only Spider-man and Avengers have made big money. It’s hard to imagine a team of anonymous heroes with no strong emotional hook succeeding. But it would be cool if it were a hit there.
Agreed Chris, but anytime you throw anthropomorphism in there, theres a chance it’ll stick. (or princesses).
Spacesheik: I think this is the first. August has had the #2 movie of the summer several times, but not #1.
“Sam: I was disappointed in the use of Chuck Norris in EXPENDABLES 2. All he did was shoot a gun. Not even one roundhouse kick.”
I got the impression the Chuck Norris cameos were more about parodying the meme version of himself than his actual past working history. On that basis, the idea of Norris just sort of genially showing up and effortlessly causing instant mass destruction worked for me regardless of how he physically did it.
It’s actually kind of amazing that M Night had his two biggest successes in August, namely Sixth Sense and Signs. Before Nolan staked out the late Summer Blockbuster for adults slot.
One wonders if they had released Unbreakable in that August slot if it would have fared better. The largest grossing movie in August of 2000 was Hollow Man with $73m.
Unbreakable at $95m was deemed a failure. Maybe he would have had the blockbuster hatrick. I guess they learned their lesson and that’s why Signs was released in August 02.
Thanks EtGuild2, that’s what I thought, it is a first, but then again the 4th July flicks were so weak, it’s isn’t surprising.
Because there’s nowhere else to post this:
Right now two of the front page’s stories are about Jerry Seinfeld getting miffed about his car and an albino “killer croc” named Michael Jackson.
Is Poland trying to get a tabloid to buy the site????
They made good verbiage for headlines!
So “Boyhood” is “holding strong with a nice expansion”? It’s already out of the mainstream theaters where I live.
Chucky: IFC has released 333 films. BOYHOOD is its 2nd biggest grosser ever.
Having a cast like that for EXPENDABLES 3 and not delivering should be a movie crime.