Guardians of the Box Office. What Did You See This Weekend?
Sunday, August 3, 2014 at 11:03PM Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report. As expected, Guardians of the Galaxy topped the week’s chart, though it wasn’t quite expected that it would do this well. In true Marvel fashion, the previous record for the month of August has been blown up with a big bang, what with Guardians taking in nearly $25m more than Bourne Ultimatum. As I’m sure you know, I haven’t yet seen the film. Nathaniel has but is not enthused.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
01 GUARDIANS OF GALAXY $94 *NEW* Review
02 LUCY $18.2 (cum. $79.5)
03 GET ON UP $14 *NEW*
04 HERCULES $10.7 (cum. $52.3)
05 DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES $8.7 (cum. $189.3) Reviewish & Podcast
06 PLANES: FIRE AND RESCUE $6.4 (cum. $47.5)
07 THE PURGE: ANARCHY $5.5 (cum. $62.9)
08 SEX TAPE $3.5 (cum. $33.9)
09 AND SO IT GOES $3.3 (cum. $10.4)
10 A MOST WANTED MAN $3.3 (cum. $7) Review
The other big opening of the weekend, the James Brown biopic Get On Up finished below Lucy, faring slightly better than that Clint Eastwood musical biopic no one liked earlier this year.
Just outside the top ten, there is Boyhood, now IFC Studio’s third best selling film of all time. Here’s an interesting statistic: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, IFC’s best selling film, has grossed more than all the studio’s other 331 films, combined. Even more mind-blowing than that fact is the below possibility:
I asked Richard Linklater about a Boyhood sequel. His answer was fantastic. pic.twitter.com/YV1OfgPBam
— Simon Crook (@sicrook) August 2, 2014
The prospect of a sequel to Boyhood doesn’t excite me much, but entertaining the thought that it could be in some way related to the Before trilogy is really messing with my head and I like it!
Other than Guardians, only two films boasted a better per screen average than Boyhood: Magic in the Moonlight and Calvary, a new limited release with a surprisingly strong opening and quite limited wide potential, I imagine. Otherwise, the small market remained relatively quiet. And so did I. August should be the month when I get back into gear and hit the theaters, but for now, these are all just names to me.
What did you watch this weekend?
Reader Comments (15)
This idea of BOYHOOD being like some sort of (time-fudged) prequel to the Before movies has been raised before so I'm not sure why suddenly everyone's paying it attention now. It's a nice though, but it also stinks of franchise worship. Everything needs to be a part of a greater whole.
Speaking of... I saw GUARDIANS and liked it a lot. It deserves top marks if just for introducing The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" to millions upon millions of people who have likely never heard of it until now.
glenn -- even you? sigh. i guess i'll be alone on this one. I thought it was sloppy/tacky. somewhat funny but...
Saw The Limey- Unsurprisingly, took to it a lot. Terrence Stamp rules and I was fascinated in how Soderbergh employed a semi-obscure Loach film Stamp was in to the film as Stamp's flashback scenes.
I Am Divine! was a great, fun watch a major fan of Divine/Glenn Milstead and John Waters. A real treat and despite the by the numbers pretense of talking heads, I admired the director making sure he actually had people who knew Divine, worked with Divine, and knew their stuff about drag culture and also the films.
And finally watched Godard's Tout va Bien. Jane Fonda's most political film where she speaks French quite a bit but clearly defers to the material and Brechtian kind of political filmmaking Godard and Gorin are going for. Most stars you may not understand why they would do that but that seems unquestionable for a Jane Fonda in 1972. There is also a superb, sustaining, long take, tracking shot that is the backbone of the film.
Its funny. Jersey boys was extremely well reviewed in Brasil. It was not a B.O. Hit.but critics loved it and most of the audience did as well.
Guardians of the Galaxy. Loved it. Yes, it suffered from first-movie expositionitis that befell X-Men and Star Trek, but it was super fun and so pretty. Hope the sequel is more X2 and less Into Darkness.
I saw Guardians... at the Thursday night sneak peak, but since the studios count those grosses for Friday, I'll count it as part of the weekend too. I mostly liked it for its humor, heart, and the little grace notes Gunn works in, but it is definitely formulaic, weighed down by exposition, visually cluttered, and so, so, so shouty. So much shouting.
Friday I saw A Most Wanted Man. I love chilly European spy thrillers and thought this was an unusually sophisticated example of the genre. Hoffman's performance is so good it just makes his passing hurt all over again.
Saturday I did an Abel Ferrera double feature at home: Ms. 45, a provocative exploitation thriller; and 4:44, an exceptional micro-scaled end of the world drama.
Sunday I made it about halfway through The Immigrants, and was enjoying it, but had to get out and enjoy the nice weather. I'll finish it sometime this week.
Finally made it to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Wow, this one really lived up to all the great notices. Best time at the movies in ages. Heart-pounding, adrenaline-filled, full of emotion and philosophical messages that resonate.
Also, The Good Earth, and Luise deserved that damn Oscar--and I am a huge Dunne fan. What an epic film, and one of the few examples where white actors did a great job portraying ethnic characters. Very moving.
As was A Star is Born. Judy was so deserving of the Oscar she didn't get. Shame on Grace Kelly. I was surprised at the great chemistry she had with Mason. It shouldn't have worked on paper, but it did. Charles Bickford should have earned an Oscar nom. What an achievement for Judy and Cukor.
I saw Get on Up and A Most Wanted Man.
Get on Up was okay. Tate Taylor tried to give us something different by experimenting with non-linear storytelling, but it just made the movie seem more episodic and more random (although it seemed to become more and more chronological by the end). Even more than most biopics, I'm not sure there was a theme here, though there were some good scenes.
A Most Wanted Man was excellent, a dense, complex spy thriller. Most of the attention has rightfully focused on Hoffman, but Willem Dafoe was wonderful, too.
I made three trips to the theatre this weekend, one per day:
Guardians of the Galaxy - Loved it. I'd probably rank it fourth among the Marvel Studios films right now, though that's provisional. I've been a fan of Chris Pratt since Everwood, so it's rewarding to see him being a successful film star now, and I can only admire the ambition required to bring Rocket Raccoon and Groot to the big screen.
Lucy - A dumb movie that is under the tragic misapprehension that it's a cerebral movie. If you're going to use the silly "10% of our brains" misconception as the springboard for cool action, I'm fine with that, but for God's sake, don't actually believe this is intellectually stimulating and focus primarily on that.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - High quality. I consider the relaunch to be a good movie with great elements; Dawn is a great blockbuster, improving on the things that weren't compelling the first time around (the humans apart from John Lithgow), and making the thing that was great initially even better (the apes).
Saw Guardians (which was a ton of fun, THANK GOD) and Get On Up, which I thought was not served well by its structure. I'm not sure a perfectly linear chronology would have made for a better film, but it certainly would have been easier to follow. Chadwick Boseman, though. KILLER performance. Incredible. Cannot say enough good things. He's more than reason enough to see the movie. And Viola Davis was great in the three scenes she had (probably too small a role to get awards traction, but she kills as expected).
Nat, yeah it's not perfect but I liked the style and freshness that it offered.
Saw it.
Big Positives:
1. The Soundtrack.
2. Yondu. (Of the characters that aren't in the central 5, he's easily the character worth the most.)
3. Groot and Rocket.
4. Star Lord.
5. The Stinger.
Mixed, closest to negative to closest to positive:
1. Nebula
2. Drax (Not really fully well-written and there's clearly some material that's either on the cutting room floor or being held back for future releases due to some word choices.)
3. Character amount/every other character who isn't a villain or in the central 5 (At close to 15 actual characters and lots of scenes with background fodder, this is a VERY populated feeling movie for just under 2 hours. On the one hand, it really gives a sense of the stakes/scale, but on the other, character development, even among the central five is mostly haphazard and intermittent and you get the sense that this MIGHT actually need (at least) 20 additional minutes.)
4. Gamora
5. Thanos
Big Negative:
1. Ronan the Accuser (Yeah, even as someone who does really honestly love the movie, I still have to admit he was terrible and no one involved really cared about him. Ranking their major villains:
15. Guy Pearce Mandarin. (I'm thankful he's getting superseded, because a lot of the air went out of IM3 when the twist was sprung, even if it was still a funny twist that, in theory, was a way to sidestep uncomfortable racial elements.)
14. William Hurt Thunderbolt Ross.
13. Justin Hammer (I get the point is sort of supposed to be that he's weeny, but it still doesn't work.)
12. Ronan the Accuser (Yeah, he's slightly better than the three above him, but he's still not good. The best thing about him was his passing.)
11. Tim Roth Abomination (Yeah, this is still in the "not good enough to not be replaced" realm.)
10. Malekith. (Starting to get to the "good enough to keep around if they want to, but not good enough to get to the point of caring" area.)
9. Whiplash. (There was maybe not QUITE enough of the guy, but what was there was decently effective.)
8. Nebula (Yes, I'm mixed on her portrayal in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, but maybe the second impression will be better.)
7. Thanos (I was a little more on board with this. It could have been a whole lot worse and been total laughable lily gilding, but they didn't go that overboard. Again, there's still room for improvement.)
6. Alexander Pierce (Not great, but still cared about him. (That's what unadorned Robert Redford gets you, folks.)
5. Obadiah Stane (Again. It's Jeff Bridges as an uber industrialist. Not exactly his best work, but CLOSE to the best MCU villains have gotten.)
4. Arnim Zola (That computer room scene is just killer, even if it's slightly wasteful that he's probably gone.)
3. Red Skull (Yep, there's only two better major villains in the MCU than this. Nearly unmatchable.)
2. John Garrett aka The Clairvoyant (Yeah, he's not a film villain. Yeah, the show he was on took a LONG time (almost too long) to get to him. But he's still canon to the MCU, so, y'know what, I'm counting him. So good, and so well performed, that he'd get revived, somehow.)
1. Loki. (Everyone knew I was going with this. I HAD to. Everyone knows he's the best villain of the MCU and for good reason.))
Yeah, the villain is it for me in the way of negatives and, even then, there's still technically worse villains in the MCU. Here's hoping for good things from Ultron.
I saw (and loved) Guardians of the Galaxy in theaters. I streamed We Are What We Are and wish Netflix's description didn't identify the midway plot twist to trick people into watching a slowburn psychological horror; it's good if your expectations are right. I rewatched Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and howled the whole way through.
I rewatched Creepshow 2 and was not amused. I couldn't get through Alone With Her, which was S&Man or the Maniac remake without any attempt to create plot or social commentary.
Watched "Mood Indigo" (pretty visuals, so so film), a second screening of "Snowpiercer" (still fun!) and "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" (very good, building upon the first).
Good grief. I only saw transformers 4 third time. I wish I could see this guardians movie over and over and over and over again.