April 25, 2024
The Hot Blog
amit on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
Christian on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
| Friday | Screens | % Chg | Cume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Gross | Thtr | % Chgn | Cume |
| Venom | 33 | 4250 | NEW | 33 |
| A Star is Born | 15.7 | 3686 | NEW | 15.7 |
| Smallfoot | 3.5 | 4131 | -46% | 31.3 |
| Night School | 3.5 | 3019 | -63% | 37.9 |
| The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls | 1.8 | 3463 | -43% | 49.5 |
| A Simple Favor | 1 | 2408 | -50% | 46.6 |
| The Nun | 0.75 | 2264 | -52% | 111.5 |
| Hell Fest | 0.6 | 2297 | -70% | 7.4 |
| Crazy Rich Asians | 0.6 | 1466 | -51% | 167.6 |
| The Predator | 0.25 | 1643 | -77% | 49.3 |
| Also Debuting | ||||
| The Hate U Give | 0.17 | 36 | ||
| Shine | 85,600 | 609 | ||
| Exes Baggage | 75,900 | 62 | ||
| NOTA | 71,300 | 138 | ||
| 96 | 61,600 | 62 | ||
| Andhadhun | 55,000 | 54 | ||
| Afsar | 45,400 | 33 | ||
| Project Gutenberg | 36,000 | 17 | ||
| Love Yatri | 22,300 | 41 | ||
| Hello, Mrs. Money | 22,200 | 37 | ||
| Studio 54 | 5,300 | 1 | ||
| Loving Pablo | 4,200 | 15 |
| 3-Day Estimates | Weekend | % Chg | Cume |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Good Dead | 24.4 (11,230) | NEW | 24.4 |
| Dolphin Tale 2 | 16.6 (4,540) | NEW | 16.6 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 7.9 (2,550) | -23% | 305.8 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | 4.8 (1,630) | -26% | 181.1 |
| The Drop | 4.4 (5,480) | NEW | 4.4 |
| Let's Be Cops | 4.3 (1,570) | -22% | 73 |
| If I Stay | 4.0 (1,320) | -28% | 44.9 |
| The November Man | 2.8 (1,030) | -36% | 22.5 |
| The Giver | 2.5 (1,120) | -26% | 41.2 |
| The Hundred-Foot Journey | 2.5 (1,270) | -21% | 49.4 |
Review: Little Women (no spoilers) - The Hot Blog
Box Office First Look - The Hot Blog
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree - The Hot Blog
Wow, I knew THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS would be hurt by SULLY, but I wasn’t expecting a complete wipeout. I liked LIGHT well enough and figured WOM would be good. Guess not.
It’s not on here, but my goodness, HANDS OF STONE has a $154 per theater average according to Mojo. 7 tickets a day!
BAD MOMS is a week or so away from passing TRAINWRECK and SPY from last year. It’s in range of HORRIBLE BOSSES…does that mean an ill-advised sequel is on the way?
Hey why not, Ethan? Mechanic fans got a sequel, so surely Bad Moms deserves one.
Horrible Bosses 2, Neighbors 2, Ted 2, Zoolander 2…might be better to just declare Bad Moms a sleeper hit and move on.
And I’m sure multiplexes are just thrilled to have to keep Morgan around for a second week with that $250 per screen average. What is that, 4 shows a day, 12 shows a weekend = 2-3 tickets sold per screening?
But didn’t Neighbors, Ted, and Horrible Bosses sequels make money? It was a sharp drop in BO and not the windfall of the originals, but especially for a hungry new distributor like STX you would want as many sure things as you can.
Yeah, they have an interesting dilemma, given that it likely will make as much money for the studio as the rest of their filmography combined,but recent comedy sequels (aside from the brilliant 22 Jump Street) have dipped significantly. Hcat, the thing with those is, TED and NEIGHBORS made a lot more money than BAD MOMS, but HORRIBLE BOSSES is right there on the border, so it’s a tough call. The sequel, in that case may have been barely profitable.
A lot of studios have this borderline issue right now. What do you do with STAR TREK? What do you do with ICE AGE, given that it made a good chunk of change if the production budget was really $105 million…Spin-off time? NYSM? Lots of decisions to be made.
Comedy sequels are so hit-or-miss – for every 22 Jump Street, there is a Horrible Bosses 2, Ted 2, and Neighbors 2….it seems like the odds are always against one really clicking. That said if you keep the cost relatively low, there’s no reason you just can’t ‘Police Academy this thing until you have create other viable hits: New Line pretty much built themselves on Nightmare on Elm Street sequels.
The problem with those comedy sequels, besides not being very funny (Ted 2 was better than I expected), is that they were sequels where the original film didn’t really allow for a sequel to really make sense. A buddy cop movie like 21 Jump Street makes more sense, and it also helps that it was actually funny.
Just an observation on the overseas numbers, but while Dory’s $467m is nothing to sneeze at, it seems underwhelming considering all the good will and name recognition of Finding Nemo, which itself got to $559m, and the fact that both Zootopia and Jungle Book got past $600m. I wonder why this one didn’t resonate at least as much as the original? Also, it is the first Pixar sequel to underperform the original overseas. Even Cars 2 put up bigger overseas numbers than Cars.
Agreed Bulldog, though for an animated film this year, the real difference can be explained simply by ZOOTOPIA’s $236 million Chinese haul. Only one other Hollywood animated movie–KUNG FU PANDA 3, which was a Chinese co-production–has ever broken $100 million in the market. For even crazier context, if you add up every Disney Computer animated movie before Zootopia, and then add in every Pixar movie on top of those, you get $225 million in Chinese grosses. Or, to make things fair for this year, it made triple what PETS and DORY made combined.
I have no idea why ZOOTOPIA is six times as appealing as PETS there—the subtle utopian Communism? the sexually tinged excitement of anthropomorphism for Eastern audiences?–but it’s skewed animated worldwide grosses for years to come. TJB is more easily explained appeal wise, and the China gross again makes up for the whole difference with DORY.
Thanks ET. Weird how somethings hit bigger than others. We can all analyse after the fact why Fast & Furious has such appeal but can anyone truly say that this franchise was expected to post bigger numbers than Star Wars : Awakens. It’s the only movie outside of the Cameron duet that actually beat Star Wars at something. Pt 7 actually doubled what Pt 6 made and that was no slouch either at $550m overseas and was only 2 years previously, so not like there was a pent up demand for product. The rise of that series is absolutely astonishing.
I think the big part of the F&F success is the cast. It’s multicultural without really feeling forced, kinda like the real world that the media world is still trying to catch up to.
@Bulldog, a hilarious wrinkle to F&F is that according to a friend in Shanghai, Michelle Rodriguez is thought to be one of the biggest actresses in Hollywood over there due to the franchise and her work in AVATAR. They should test this theory by giving “(Re) Assignment” a Chinese release. Rodriguez, and Zoe Saldana have certainly had interesting careers, as they’ve gotten more worldwide exposure than perhaps any other actresses in Hollywood, but probably only get passing glances on the street. Jeremy Renner is in the same category thanks to Avengers, MI, and Bourne. Such is the industry now.
Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg pulled off DEEPWATER HORIZON. I’m kind of shocked to be honest. Wahlberg gives his best lead performance since THE FIGHTER. Berg reestablishes himself as perhaps the most enigmatic mainstream director in Hollywood.
“They should test this theory by giving “(Re) Assignment” a Chinese release.”
That’s funny. This movie sounds deliriously bonkers and so-bad-it’s-good. Walter Hill?
Based on what I read that seems to be a minority opinion re: Deepwater Horizon. Reviews suggest it’s kind of a big dumb action movie that trivializes a pretty horrific tragedy. That’s pretty high praise for Peter Berg. He’s alright but I don’t think I’ve truly loved a single film he’s made. His best work is television, by far. Friday Night Lights NBC and The Leftovers are better than any feature he’s directed.
Maybe polarizing was a better word, but he has a habit of making movies that are half great or divide audiences down the middle. The man produced HELL OR HIGH WATER and BATTLESHIP after all. I think HANCOCK is brilliant, and there’s people who swear by THE KINGDOM, even though I hated it. I thought DH finely walked the line between entertaining action and surprising realism (that budget went to good use) with Wahlberg going all in, but yeah apparently a lot of reviewers didn’t.
And yeah I’m dying to see “(Re) Assignment.” It’s the type of crazed weirdness that is really rare nowadays due to PC concerns.
Busy guy that Peter Berg. He also has Patriots Day with Wahlberg again coming out in January. Were they doing a simultaneous shoot or what?
I like his films with Battleship being the low point. Thought Lone Survivor was way more effective and gripping than American Sniper. Hancock was highly entertaining save for the ending. The Rundown was a solid action/comedy flick that deserved better than it’s $47m at the box office, and I do love The Kingdom.
Peter Berg has had an interesting career – it always seems like his films are aiming for a level of sophistication that he often doesn’t have the chops for. In that way, he’s kind of like Antoine Fuqua: I wish both of them would just admit they’re workmanlike action directors and focus more on giving us the most entertaining action film possible.
That said, I guess I’m the only one who can admit to enjoying Battleship….I found it to be like an overblown Michael Bay action movie, except coherent. I’m sorry but I really enjoyed the prep-montage and climax on the U.S.S. Missouri – Berg delivers good “America Fuck Yeah” patriotism better than any one else out there.
That use of Thunderstruck was just perfect. The whole dating the admiral’s daughter thing just sunk the movie really, so in my mind it was their attempts at comedy that did them in. The whole premise of an alien style battleship might have also just been too silly I guess too. Transformers basically stuck to the premise, and it may have been that if they had actually given us an old school battleship movie with bad guys whom you really hate, and heroes you could really root for, they may have made more coin. But bringing on a real life wounded Colonel who was given some of the worst lines and still yet somehow nailed everyone of them to realistic perfection was a nice touch. He was the best thing in the movie.
I do like a lot of Berg’s movies. The Rundown, Hancock, and The Kingdom are all pretty entertaining flicks, but I think Geoff sums him up extremely well. His career is definitely interesting, but he is more workmanlike than craftsman. Sure likes his true stories. Is he cleansing Battleship with real-life heroes?
If Berg was directing in the 30s and 40s her would be Ray Enright or William Seiter.
William A. Seiter was a really good director.
I can see the coparisons with Fuqua or David Ayer, but to me the difference is Berg IS capable of doing more, but is like a B or C-grade QT…he’s happier indulging himself, whereas for Fuqua and Ayer those indulgences are SOP. Fuqua has made 6 or 7 mind-numbingly dumb, albeit occasionally entertaining movies in a row. I don’t see Berg ever doing that. People complain about Berg sacrificing drama for action in his finales. Fuqua (Southpaw, Shooter Equalizer) does that after about 10 or 20 minutes.
I’d be more cautiously on the fence for a Berg MAGNIFICENT SEVEN whereas with Fuqua I was immediately pessimistic.
Interesting comparisons Ethan. I think all three of the directions have made very entertaining and very dumb (sometimes both) movies. I’m not sure I really think one is a significantly better director than the others. I like End of Watch more than anything Berg or Fuqua has directed, but I don’t prefer Ayer to either.
Ayer has higher peaks (End of Watch, much of Fury) and lower valleys (Sabotage, Street Kings, the screenplay for S.W.A.T.) in my opinion. I don’t have any preference between Ayer and Berg, but I’m about done with Fuqua if only because EQUALIZER probably had Ed Woodward spinning in his grave.
That’s the viewpoint of a fan of the show? I never watched it. Thought the movie was OK. Love Denzel and will watch him in anything (OK I haven’t seen The Preacher’s Wife). Fuqua always has Brooklyn’s Finest, but yeah I think I want to like him more than I actually do. Fun discussion. Glad you started it. Did you see Deepwater Horizon at TIFF?
Fuqua AND Ayer have been riding the coattails of Training Day for 15 years now…..I LOVE Denzel but I also think it’s probably one of his most over-rated performances and movies all around.
Yeah Fuqua’s films have just pissed me off recently, he seems to get in his own way too often:
The Equalizer could have been great pulp fun if he wasn’t insistent on padding on 15 minutes of Heat homages towards the end of it
Southpaw featured two very strong central performances (Gyllenhall, Whitaker) but did NOT need more than 40 minutes of story set-up
Olympus Has Fallen could have just been a breezy but brutal Die Hard clone but of course, he had to insert an extended prologue about the President’s wife that didn’t have anything else to do with the rest of the movie.
I’m hopeful for Magnificent Seven but I’m expecting it to be at least 15 minutes too long.
“The whole dating the admiral’s daughter thing just sunk the movie really, so in my mind it was their attempts at comedy that did them in.”
It took up way too much screentime and sorry, NOBODY was buying Brooklyn Decker as a Physical Therapist either. But….it was fun to see this dialogue exchange at the end:
“Sir….I saved the world!”
“Saving the world is one thing. My daughter is quite another.”
Scenes like that are EXACTLY why you hire Liam Neeson to play the put-upon father.
I would like to see Berg do more TV. His script and direction of the FNL pilot is still one of the best things I’ve ever seen on network TV.
I’ll take Ayer’s high peaks. I loved Fury. I haven’t really liked any of Berg’s movies and think Friday Night Lights is probably one of the most overrated movies of recent times. Don’t really dig Fuqua either but he did make Training Day. Don’t care, I have seen that movie like 15 times and watch it almost every time I catch it on TV and it is just so watchable. He will always have that as a plus on his resume.
@Stella, yup! AMERICAN PASTORAL was the only other thing I saw, as I’m a huge fan of the book. I’m just going to pretend the movie never happened…and yeah I was an “Equalizer” fan growing up, watched it on A&E pre-reality era.
Yeah, Geoff, totally agree on the riding TRAINING DAY coattails. But yeah it’s addictively watchable.
I also love American Pastoral and love the trailer. So incredibly bummed to hear the movie is junk. It’s not like I go every year but I hate missing TIFF. Love it so much.