Meryl Streep? Tom Cruise? Pac-Man? Vacation? It's like the 1980s all over again in movie theaters. It was a weak weekend overall with a ton of miniscule new releases and underperforming wide newbies. Meryl Streep had her worst opening weekend in a film sold on mostly on her presence since Prime (2005) before she regained her box office clout with The Devil Wears Prada. The only true success story this weekend was the word of mouth for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation which held on to #1 for another weak. It is definitely a fun summer picture but the "best in the series!" reviews feel like a bit of an overstatement. It's not quite as ambitiously staged and exciting as Ghost Protocol, but it's better than the other action films around it which makes it seem that much better. That opera scene with at least four simultaneous agendas in play and all the deadly assassins totally confused by each other sure is a kick, though, don't you think?
Meanwhile the superhero world's First Family, The Fantastic Four are now on their fifth onscreen iteration: first, a terrible one season 1978 animated series (wherein they inexplicably replaced The Human Torch - the best of the four! - with a tiny talking robot; second, another cheapie animated attempt in the mid 90s that lasted just two seasons; third, an infamous unreleased lowbudget live action version; fourth, that awful bad-looking two-film attempt in the Aughts with Jessica Alba, horribly miscast, and a Thing that looked more like mud than rocks; fifth, is the one we have now. If Hollywood can't get this right after five attempts, perhaps it's time to stop trying?
All that said, it's weird to see a film open to $26 million despite bad prelease buzz and the worst possible reviews and still be described as a total disaster at the box office. Many films would leap for joy at a $26 million opening so we're clearly living in an artificially-inflated bubble when it comes to superhero expectations. And that bubble may have finally just burst.
TOP OF THE CHARTS
August 7-9 estimates
01 Mission: Impossible 5 $29.4 (cum. $108.6) Review
02 Fantastic Four $26.2 NEW
03 The Gift $12 NEW
04 Vacation $9.1 (cum. $37.3)
05 Ant-Man $7.8 (cum. $147.4) Review, Podcast
06 Minions $7.3 (cum. $302.7) Tim on the Minions phenom
07 Ricki & The Flash $7 NEW Review
08 Trainwreck $6.2 (cum. $91) Podcast
09 Pixels $5.4 (cum. $57.6) Review
10 Southpaw $4.7 (cum. $40.7) Which Jake do you love most?, Podcast
11 Shaun the Sheep Movie $4 NEW (cum. $5.5) Aardman Films
12 Inside Out $2.6 (cum. $335.3) Podcast
I'm sad for Shaun the Sheep and for Meryl since Ricki and the Flash is moving and fun. Sure it's not perfect but it's better than a lot of the stuff out there that people are willing to put up with much less from. But though the first half of the year had some really great stuff, can we all agree that it's been kind of a weak summer season in terms of Must See mainstream releases? Would Jurassic World have become such a behemoth had it had more exciting competition?
We haven't checked in on limited releases in a while...
CHECKING IN WITH RANDOM SMALLER RELEASES
August 7-9 estimates
Mr Holmes 781 locations $1.3 (cum. $12.8)
Irrational Man 925 locations $.8 (cum. $2.2)
Amy 149 locations $.2 (cum. $6.9) Glenn's Review
The End of the Tour 36 locations $.2 (cum. $.4)
Phoenix 27 locations $.1 (cum. $.2) Nina Hoss Interview
Stanford Prison Experiment 66 locations $.08 (cum. $.4) Review
Diary of a Teenage Girl 4 locations $.05 NEW Review
Tangerine ??? locations TBA Review, Podcast
After a spike of popularity with a couple of Oscar players Woody Allen's box office is back down again to its normal miniscule domestic levels. The sad thing about Woody Allen's inconsistency is that every time he gets momentum again from a good picture, the next film tends to squander the goodwill. To Rome With Love performed far far better than it had any right to but it was sandwiched between his two best in decades. Ah well, they can't all be Blue Jasmines and Midnight in Parises.
Phoenix and Amy, buoyed by strong reviews have done well for themselves. It's too early to know about The End of the Tour and Diary of a Teenage Girl but neither are exploding so they will need some luck to stay in play. Mr. Holmes has arguably overperformed so can we please get more lead roles for Sir Ian?
There's no estimates on Sean Baker's Tangerine for the weekend but after three weeks of growth on great reviews and word of mouth, it lost a little steam last weekend. Still. it was recently nearing a $500,000 domestic gross which is pretty damn great for an adults only film with two trans actors and no stars and a non famous auteur that was shot on an iPhone! In short, it's already outgrossed the rest of Sean Baker's filmography combined (Starlet, Prince of Broadway, Take Out, and Four Letter Words)
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?