By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Weekend Estimates by Wardrobe Malfunction
Aside from single-screen releases of Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Soiren and Kiarostami’s final film 24 Frames, A Fantastic Woman is the only opening over $4,100 per screen this weekend.
Seven of the nine Best Picture nominees are still in theaters (limited releases of Get Out and Dunkirk lasted only a week),
The Shape of Water chugged past Three Billboards and Lady Bird, but is in no immediate danger of cracking the Top 3 of the nine (#1 Dunkirk, #2 Get Out, #3 The Post), which would put it in the danger zone, where no film has won Best Picture since the expansion from 5 BP nominees. Box office film #4 of the BP nominees has won the big award twice in eight years… 25%. Could leap to 33.3% this year.
Only The Post and The Shape of Water are on over 1,500 screens.
Darkest Hour had a small expansion, and it and Shape should be over $50 million by the end of next weekend.
I, Tonya is a big hit for Neon, getting a film to the high end of A24 business in just its first year, when it took A24 three years. (A24, of course, is cracking their ceiling with Lady Bird, which could do close to double what the distributor’s previous top title did.)
Hostiles also is over $20 million for Entertainment Studios, though this isn’t close to the new distributor’s one hit so far, 47 Meters Down.
International worked magic for Ferdinand, which didn’t quite land here for Fox, but is nearing $300m worldwide, running just behind The Greatest Showman.
Jumanji will pass $900 million in a couple weeks, making it Top 5 for 2017, but coming short of the next level at $1 billion. Notably, that will leave only one comic book movie in the Top 5. (Star Wars, Beauty, F&F, Despicable 3.)
Enjoy the Super Bowl. I was born in Philly and am a Dolphins fan, so I should hate The Pats. But I don’t. They have earned their success, even if they cheat sometimes. I’d like an Eagles win, but I won’t be comfortable with the idea, even if they have a big lead, until the clock is under a minute or Tom Brady gets crushed in a horrible wardrobe malfunction and Timberlake has to play for him. And if the Pats win another, God bless ’em… it’s been an amazing run… and even if they keep it together for another couple years, the agony of being in their division is almost over. Hope it’s a great game!
Shrug. I spent a cold weekend catching up with three of 2017’s more unfairly neglected gems. Only the Brave, Last Flag Flying and Goodbye Christopher Robin. Three fine films that just didn’t deserve to fall between the cracks like they did. Check them out.
Despite losing the direct connection to The Last Detail as in Ponicsan’s 2005 novel, I was quite pleased with Last Flag Flying, which put moisture in my eyes on three different occasions. I had my issues with it, but overall, it deserved a much wider audience. As for what really killed it? Its textual assertions about the government being a big fat liar about the reasons for sending off your kids to be killed, and then lying again about how they were killed. Almost seems like the crickets in these instances get a memo from the all-seeing eye at the top of the pyramid saying, hey, this movie is subversive, make sure your review is no better than lukewarm (but give 12 Strong or some other nationalist claptrap a rave, please).
PTA Fluffer:
“hey, this movie is subversive, make sure your review is no better than lukewarm (but give 12 Strong or some other nationalist claptrap a rave, please).”
What are you even talking about? Last Flag Flying is at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, while 12 Strong is at 54%. On Metacritic, Last Flag is at 65, with 12 Strong again at 54%.
Can’t agree more about “Last Flag Flying.”
Linklater can never seem to cut a break.
Lionsgate/Amazon fumbled the release as badly as Paramount did the previous year w/ “Everybody Wants Some!!”
Liked “Goodbye Christopher Robin” more than I expected to, but it’s not hard to see why the movie failed to connect w/ audiences. It’s essentially a tale of child abuse.
Weird that Disney has their very own Chris Robin movie coming out this summer. (I wonder if they regret the decision to greenlight it after seeing how badly Searchlight’s Robin movie tanked last fall.)
For a movie filled w/ testosterone, my favorite performance in “Brave” was turned in by Jennifer Connelly.
Weird that it didn’t do better at the box-offoice. Wrong (very crowded) date? Kosinksi’s best movie to date by a country mile.
As someone else always points out here – OtB starred box office poison Miles Teller. Sure to sink any film.