Fantastic Box Office and Where To Find It...
Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 12:03PM Where to find it? With franchises, naturally. Audiences are quite predictable that way.
Fantastic Beasts won the weekend easily and though it's opening wasn't really at the Harry Potter level it's got the Thanksgiving weekend coming up to make mountains of money to store in Gringotts to help fund further endless more installments. We'll never be free of Harry Potter. But, dear reader, I'm personally skipping this one. Those films just weren't my scene so unless this one also nets Oscar nominations I need a break; four years off wasn't enough! Among the other new films opening Edge of Seventeen and Bleed for This failed to excite moviegoers landing toward the bottom of the top ten. Ang Lee's soldier drama experiment Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk had a disastrous wide expansion taking in less than 1 million dollars in its first weekend...
On the less mainstream side Moonlight is practically wide now and though the per screen average has plunged (as is natural once you considerably expand) with $6 million in the bank it has to be a success considering the type of niches it occupies (arthouse/gay/urban). How high can it push that tally up? Will awards nomination arrive soon enough to keep it running for months?
And though it's only in 2 theaters, so didn't chart below, I highly recommend the new Sondheim documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. It looks at the original cast of Sondheim's flop Merrily We Roll Along and how the production effected their lives then and what became of them thereafter when they grew up. Really smart and emotional subject matter given that musical's own themes.
What did you see this weekend?
TOP WIDE
800 screens +
01 Fantastic Beasts $75 NEW
02 Doctor Strange $17.6 (cum. $181) Review
03 Trolls $17.5 (cum. $116.2) Review and NEW PODCAST
04 Arrival $11.8 (cum. $43.3) Review and Podcast
05 Almost Christmas $7 (cum. $25.4)
06 Hacksaw Ridge $6.7 (cum. $42.8) Review
07 Edge of Seventeen $4.8 NEW Review
TOP LIMITED
under 800 screens excluding previously wide releases
01 Moonlight $1.5 (cum. $6.7) 650 screens Review and Podcast
02 Loving $854K (cum. $1.7) 137 screens Review and Podcast
03 Nocturnal Animals $494K NEW 37 screens Review
04 Manchester by the Sea $241K NEW 4 screens Review, Second Take
05 The Eagle Huntress $195K (cum. $555K) 39 screens Review
06 Elle $128K (cum. $214K) 24 screens Review
07 Ae Dil Hai Mushkil $70K (cum. $4.2) 53 screens
Reader Comments (27)
Fantastic Beasts was garbage from start to finish, except that Samantha Morton plays a parody of a Samantha Morton role, and there is a strongly implied psychosexual relationship between Colin Farrell and Ezra Miller that, sadly, eventuates into CGI whooshing rather anything good :(
Eddie Redmayne generally makes bad movies. Good rule of thumb is to always skip.
Elle elle elle elle Elle!
I unashamedly loved Fantastic Beasts - and how nice to see Samantha Morton out and about!
Weird sexual tension between Colin Farrell and Ezra Miller - even the kids picked up on it - most awkward. (is that reason enough to see it Nat? Ha :D)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
sue me, but it's a tad less platitudinous than Doctor Strange and, therefore, a tad more enjoyable in my opinion. This statement could vary depending on which part of the day you ask me.
I liked watching a Harry Potter movie without the Harry Potter characters.
One of the Least enjoyable features of the film: Eddie Redmayne is SERIOUSLY stuck in Eddie Redmayne mode. Nothing about the performance surprised me. Not a single scene or gesture. Predictable from start to finish.
Oh boy: La La Land and Hidden Figures, both of which threw a monkey wrench in my Oscar considerations.
The short version, since this will be an ongoing debate: La La Land manages to be a triumph of filmmaking and a disappointment in one of the things I love most about musicals -- singing. Chazelle is going for a Jacques Demy thing, which would be cool if the vocals were not buried in the sound mix as well as undersung. When John Legend (one of the movie's executive producers btw) sings mid-film, suddenly the joy you've been missing is there... Absolute MVP: Gosling. Between this and The Nice Guys he's showing such versatility this year. And while I've always been an advocate of Emma Stone, if she wins for this, I will be pissed, given the competition this year and the snubbed musical ladies of bygone years. But on the whole, I really dug the film, especially its final act.
Hidden Figures: a little bit The Help, a little bit Apollo 13, a little bit The Martian, a lot of intelligent casting. I mean, Taraji, Octavia and Janelle front and center, with Costner, Jim Parsons, Kiki Dunst, Glen Powell and Mahershala Ali offering solid support. I enjoyed it thoroughly, all the while being fully aware of the ways the film was manipulating me in the most traditional Hollywood way. I don't foresee Oscars in its future, but I could be totally off-base, and I wouldn't mind. (Because--without spoiling anything--the Taraji in the rain scene.) And I drove home thinking about this production in relation to The Birth of a Nation, 13th, Loving, Fences, Moonlight, Queen of Katwe and The Fits. What a year.
Okay, not so short...
Didn't get to see any movies this weekend. Mainly because nothing looked that appealing and also, dang college papers! But it's nice Moonlight almost cracked the top 10. I'm hopeful that it can have decent legs in the upcoming holiday weekend where we have more new wide releases. Maybe as the Golden Globe nominations come out, if it scores some, people will check it out more. We shall see.
Saw three films this weekend: Billy Lynn's, Manchester by the Sea, and Nocturnal Animals. It was the "White People Got Mad Problems Yo" trilogy. ;)
"Manchester by the Sea," which is very good but I think has become overburdened by the hype and the outsize expectations it has created. Like, Michelle Williams... she's strong, obviously, but, people are seriously wanting to give her an Oscar for this? Um. Okay. The movie doesn't have much time for its female characters in general, and I'd say that includes her role as well. I wish it expanded its reach so that women weren't either 1. obstacles for men or 2. inexplicably wanting to get in bed with Casey Affleck's character. The stuff with the son made me particularly uncomfortable, his casual philandering played for laughs - "boys will be boys," right?
Fantastic Beasts.
Now I know why they hired Johnny Depp.
He also thinks that smuggling non-indigenous species is no big deal.
It reminds me of Edward Schieffilon (sp?) of the New York Zoological Society who released 60 starlings, an invasive species, into Central Park in 1890. Now there are 200 million starlings.
For the younger Dumbledore, I agree with the suggestion of Alan Cumming. Smart, quick, implacable, and funny.
I saw three movies that had passive/withdrawn/traumatized characters at their center that failed to build enough dramatic oomph to make me engage. I'm actually so tired of these characters for they seem to be everywhere nowadays...the passive/uninteresting protagonist (the easiest, least challenging acting of all, if you ask me) - the boy in Boyhood, Mara in Carol, Blunt in Sicario, etc...Leave it to Cotillard to show it like it's done in Two days One night (just because the character is depressed doesn't mean that there aren't layers).
Loving, which I felt was devoid of any drama and whose characters never convinced me of the high stakes the story would supposedly have. I thought Negga never found the voice of the character, both literally and figuratively. The peripheral characters were extremely underdeveloped as well.
Moonlight. I liked the acting of the teenage Chiron, but to me that was the only good acting. Ali had this mannerism of licking his lips all the time which was distracting and I felt everyone else either overacted or underdid it. I didn't think the movie was emotionally arresting or very believable.
Manchester by the Sea. Very disappointed at the filmmaking. Not a single shot worth talking about. The writing was good and the Boston folks made it for an authentic atmosphere a la Fargo, but ultimately, there is no catharsis. Because he never allows the Affleck character to feel his pain and he is more or less numb throughout, we as an audience are also kept from connecting emotionally. I felt Williams did ok but the part is soooo small and underwritten. And I think Margaret is the best American movie of the last 15 years...
@ Mark
Interesting—I agree with you about Boyhood (totally) and the other two from last year (to a lesser extent), but I very much connected to what Negga, Affleck and the Moonlight actors were doing. I also loved the filmmaking choices, the muted quality that didn't engage you in all three of them. I wonder if it has anything to do with my extremely personal connection to the material in all three, but they all had a certain authenticity I loved.
The Handmaiden. Lush, weird, too long.
I thought Affleck was great, but I agree he really needed a crying jag.
I'm skipping Fantastic Beasts, too. Do not need nor want five more of these films. It's The Hobbit writ large (and I gave up on them after one film). I'm sure it is perfectly pleasing as is David Yates' pattern, but i just don't give a damn.
I saw "Doctor Strange" which was in many ways another routine Marvel movie . Cumberbatch was very good and I love his cape. Swinton was memorable too. The villains minions specially Scott Adkins were better than expected. But the movie is too long, the visuals were a rip off from "Inception" but one can you expect from the director of the dreadful "Sinister". The usual post ending (which goes on forever) tease was amusing
Elle on Friday night and Manchester by the Sea today.
Elle is quite possibly THE film on sex and violence of our time. It speaks so well to how violence seduces us, screws with us, frees us, breaks us... and Isabelle Huppert is just a goddess. Whatever we did to deserve her, it was NOT enough.
Count me as another who was ever-so-slightly disappointed with Manchester by the Sea. I was mostly engrossed for most of the time, and I think the script itself is pretty great, but.... I was left thoroughly unsatisfied. Case Affleck was very good, but for 90% of the movie he's playing the same couple of notes over and over. He only ever comes alive in his scenes with Michelle Williams - their big scene near the end was by far the best in the whole thing, but even then it felt like it stopped one or two beats before it would have reached its full potential. Very, very good, and Lucas Hedges is a definite Supporting Actor contender for me, but not anywhere near best of the year in my book.
Saw Fantastic Beasts with all the family - that's me hubby and our 3 daughters aged 18 - 23. We all enjoyed it. Very nice world building and a good set set up for the the next lot of installments in the franchise. I mean since we have to have endless ongoing franchises I for one am happy we have a continuation of the Harry Potter universe. We have a theory on the "weird sexual tension" between the Colin Farrell & Ezra Miller characters but I wont say because spoilers.
There's a whole list of movies that are Oscar quality that I'm interested in seeing but I'm going to have to wait until after our school holidays (ie not until February) for most of them to come out here in Australia. I'm hoping at least that we get the three L's - La,La Land, Lion and Loving before Oscar night.
ELLE BITCH HUPPERT FOREVER
I saw Fantastic Beasts. It is a surprisingly charming, light on its feet movie, and one that celebrates decency and kindness as prime virtues, without a trace of irony or cynicism. It's hardly perfect, but it was exactly what I needed (without really realizing it) from a big noisy blockbuster right about now.
Just saw The Edge of Seventeen. Loved it. In a perfect world Hayden Szesto would be in the Supporting Actor conversation. Hailee Steinfeld was fabulous as well. Great screenplay.
@Joanne - LA LA LAND is scheduled for Boxing Day in Australia and Lion for 19 January. Not sure of LOVING's date yet.
Most of the big Oscar movies seem to be scheduled between Australia Day and mid-February.
I saw Arrival, and wow, just wow.
To my mind, it's up there with Tree of Life, Under the Skin, and Carol, as the absolute masterpieces of this decade.
I'm hot and cold on Amy Adams, but here she was so subtle and true I completely forgot I was watching her. I've yet to see Elle,LaLaLand or Fences, but she's set the bar high for female performance of the year!
Went and saw Fantasitic Beasts because I'm a Potterhead & proud of it. I enjoyed it, and hope that JK Rowling fills out this new world with more detail. For me Rowling's imagination and values are preferable to Marvel/DC fare any day of the week. Each to their own.
Btw. Colleen Atwood does some great costume work in Fantastic Beasts.
JB - I loved Amy Adams in Arrival. what a year she is having.
I skipped the movies because the boyfriend invited like 9018250987125970125 people to our joint for Thanksgiving. You people need to stop going to movies and help me cook! Da-yum.
I did get sucked into a few Hallmark Channel Christmas movies while cooking. We all need to band together and write one or more of these. They are the Harlequin romance novels of their medium. And I want to know why they are so addictive.
Ryan T- Thanks for that. I haven't laughed out loud all day until now.
Saw Elle and wow. What a tonal balancing act that I think is mostly successful. Huppert is just on another level, isn't she? I could not think of an American actress that could've pulled that off (not even auteur risk-takers like Kidman or Moore).