Box Office: The Accountant and Certain Women
Sunday, October 16, 2016 at 2:54PM Though awards season has started outside of movie theaters it definitely hasn't started within them (a flaw of the system as we continuously bemoan) and The Birth of a Nation took another campaign hit this weekend dropping a rough 61% in its second weekend while its competition last weekend dimmed by only 38 to 50% in round two. This week was a battle between two films from reliably bankable stars without awards gold on their mind -- Kevin Hart's Kevin Hart: What Now? and Ben Affleck in the thriller The Accountant. The latter surprised by slightly outperforming the successful opening weekends of both Argo and The Town despite having nothing like their enthusiastic reviews.
TOP TEN WIDE
01 The Accountant $24.7 NEW
02 Kevin Hart: What Now? $11.9 NEW
03 The Girl on the Train $11.9 (cum. $46.5) Review
04 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children $8.9 (cum. $65.8)
05 Deepwater Horizon $6.3 (cum. $49.3)
06 Storks $5.6 (cum. $59.1)
07 The Magnificent Seven $5.2 (cum. $84.8) Review
08 Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life $4.2 (cum. $13.7)
09 Sully $2.7 (cum. $118.3) Review
10 Birth of a Nation $2.7 (cum. $12.2) More
TOP TEN LIMITED
01 Priceless $703K NEW
02 Desierto $450K NEW Mexico's Oscar Submission
03 Denial $398K (cum. $839K) Review
04 A Man Called Ove $205K (cum. $436K) Sweden's Oscar Submission
05 The Dressmaker $171K (cum. $1.3)
06 American Honey $142K (cum. $362K) Review
07 The Beatles: Eight Days a Week $123K (cum. $2.5) Review
08 No Manches Frida $110K (cum. $11.3)
09 M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story $80K (cum. $1.7)
10 Certain Women $65K NEW Review
In limited release Certain Women, just off of its NYFF festival bow, posted the strongest per screen average (albeit only on 5 screens) with the animated feature Miss Hokusai (part of a very competitive Best Animated Feature race this year) not far behind on just two screens.
What did you see this weekend?
Reader Comments (23)
* Elle (Her) wonderful, absurd, hilarious, sad -> We Humans Are Twisted and Diseased! Isabelle Huppert is, naturally, awesome in this role. However, I feel like the character remained a bit too aloof the entire time. She didn't reveal much. It was the story that kept showing us things about her.
* The Girl on the Train Emily Blunt is so great here the production doesn't deserve it. If you ever saw a below mediocre film that's entirely elevated by the leading performance it's this one. Halfway through you have a decent shot at guessing who the murderer is. At least I guessed correctly.
* Genius Why is Kidman doing this to herself? Her fans? Her career?
* Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Asa Butterfield's Home for Peculiar Children also sometimes featuring Eva Green
* Everyone Says I Love You a lesser Woody film. Great ending though!
I saw 13th on Netflix and i think it deservs to be in the conversation for a best pic nomination
Saw two great documentaries 13th and Amanda Knox... highly recommend both
I've just got back from watching The Girl on the Train. I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I expected. Sure it was kinda hokey in places, but I think it will endure, it will become one of those films teenage girls watch at sleepovers, like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle was for us. Emily Blunt was sensational. She really brought her A game. I'd give it a solid 3 and a half stars out of 5. (Mainly for Emily)
I'm surprised by how well The Dressmaker is doing tbh.
I saw Joe Cinque's Consolation which was not all that great, but a strange story that's worth being told. And watched 13th on Netflix because I volunteer for misery.
I saw Fuocoammare. Not what I expected at all. Focuses way more on the village people than in the refugees.
I watched Mascots. Not Guests best work, but not his worst either.
Nat: WOW. Birth of a Nation having a percentage drop comparable to a Superhero blockbuster? (Sigh). Hopefully Loving and Fences out gross it, at least. Moonlight is probably better than either of those two and would also deserve to outgross BotN, but it's the kind of better that sounds less commercial than those two.
I saw " The Letter" on TCM Bette Davis at her peak - classic studio era production at it's best,
I saw 'Christine' and it was brilliant. If acting awards were actually given out for acting, Rebecca Hall would be poised to sweep.
mascots: i only kept watching in the hope it would get better. it didn't.
I finally saw Sully. Good, solid movie with a better than solid performance from Hanks. I don't think it needs to be in conversation for any year-end awards or anything, but still very well done.
THAT SAID, if I was giving star ratings, I would deduct a whole star for flat out WASTING Laura Linney. Wasting an actress of her caliber (in such a nothing, stock "supportive wife" part, no less!) is a crime against cinema heretofore mostly committed only by superhero movies!
I saw the documentary Command and Control, which I highly recommend. All about the risk of nuclear missle accidents in the US, and focuses on one particularly chilling accident that actually happened in Arkansas in 1980. Very well made, smart and timely.
Inferno opened in the UK. Amazingly it's worse than the other 2 Robert Langdon movies, without the bonkers Catholicism-baiting plotlines of earlier installments.
Avoid.
Nothing this weekend, but a couple of days ago I attended screenings of Moonlight (easily entering my top five of the year so far) and American Pastoral (a disappointment, sigh).
BJT: I just looked up Inferno, book and movie. The book seems to end with confirmed support of randomized population control by Dan Brown, but that doesn't seem to be in the film, even though I'd say that's the big, bonkers, "controversy baiting" moment of that book. Why was it cut? 1. It means Langdon FAILED. 2. It's Ron Howard, and he realizes that too many people would hate the implication of "we have to control the population" as not being THAT villainous a position.
Volvagia: It's hard to imagine that nice guys Ron Howard & Tom Hanks steering away from the controversy that population control is a good (necessary?) thing.
So let's see, I saw Deadpool. Not bad as far as superhero movies go. At least it was nice to see one with a sense of humor.
I also saw Magic In The Moonlight. Lesser Woody, but in no way embarrassing. Colin and Emma were lovingly photographed.
I also saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Hey, I didn't choose it. It is the definition of inessential.
That Kevin Hart opening seems very weak considering the comedic talent he's been lined up as successor to. I saw the trailer and thought "I don't get it, personally, but it was obviously greenlit to make a ton of money." $11 million open weekend is not a ton of money.
More bad movie luck for Halle Berry, I guess.
Hayden W: No, it's still huge, mostly because this is a comedy concert. Even $11 million of people heading to a movie theatre for that, instead of waiting to see it at home, is kind of incredible.
Jaragon - Isn't it great? Davis really is at her peak there.
I saw The Magnificent Seven, which was fine enough, I guess. Well made, Denzel was good, some of Pratt's line readings worked, some didn't, they wasted Byung-Hun Lee (so dreamy!) and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (also dreamy!), D'Onofrio was totally unrecognizable but very good...the thing is, my brother and I walked out of there with a feeling that something was missing. I haven't seen either of the other two earlier versions but they're spoken of with such reverence. I couldn't but leave the theater wondering why this version existed besides to make money? Did the filmmakers really think they had anything to bring to this story? Sure didn't seem like it.
Also saw Hello, My Name is Doris. Funny and actually somewhat surprising and unpredictable in places. Field kills it, of course. The crazy thing about this year is that Best Actress is so strong that really worthy work by people like Field and Blunt will get overlooked when in previous years they'd be shoo-ins.
Also finished "Fleabag" on Amazon Prime. If you haven't watched it yet, watch it! Fantastic, VERY Emmy-worthy lead performance by Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a role and show that are both complicated, funny, sexy and brimming with darker emotions right underneath the surface.
I saw several movies, but it was a lackluster week.
I found Birth of a Nation disappointing.
I had no clue what kind of movie The Accountant was trying to be.
Girl Asleep has a really fun style and some good jokes, but is too flimsy.
And Certain Women works in parts. The third story is the strongest.
Ended catching up on some Emma Stone films I hadn't seen. "Magic in the Moonlight" was ok and I liked Firth & Stone in it. "Irrational Man" I found dull at first, but after the plan comes into focus, I started enjoying it. "Aloha" was nice but plot wise felt thin, but boy did John Kraninski look hot in that uniform. "Gangster Squad" was ok, lots of gunfights, and I did enjoy the chemistry between Gosling & Stone again. Overall, it was an interesting look at Stone's career post-"Easy A" and I am looking forward to "La La Land."