Weekend Box Office: The Predator, The Wife, and More...
Monday, September 17, 2018 at 6:29PM by Nathaniel R
I'm eager to get back to regular moviegoing. I love festival season but being so far ahead of the game has drawbacks. Unlike most pundits/critics/bloggers whatever you want to call people, I don't especially like the system of the media seeing movies months before the public. Mostly because I like actually discussing them with you! So when it comes to regular releases you're probably ahead of me. Have you seen A Simple Favor or Predator or The Nun or Peppermint or White Boy Rick or Lizzie? It's easy for us at TFE to miss films that open in theaters during the heat of festival season.
And now the box office charts of the weekends with links to our reviews and such if they exist...
| Weekend Box Office Estimates (September 14-16th) |
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| W I D E 800+ screens |
PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide |
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| 1. THE PREDATOR $24 *NEW* |
1. 🔺 THE WIFE $1.2 on 541 screens (cum. $3.5) Review, Poster Blurb, Glenn's Oscar |
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| 2. THE NUN $18.2 (cum. $85) Nun Movies |
2. JULIET, NAKED $288k on 265 screens (cum. $3) |
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| 3. 🔺 A SIMPLE FAVOR $16 *NEW* |
3. YA VEREMOS $280k on 254 screens (cum. $3.8) |
Thrilled that The Wife is expanding with such ease and confidence. Go get that Oscar, Glenn! That said, it won't have much more time for itself as the most viable "adult-appeal counterprogramming" option since heavy-hitter Oscar bait stuff is about to open like First Man and A Star is Born. (I expect First Man will do well at the box office and that A Star is Born will be a blockbuster) it was an absurd year to think we needed a "popular movie" Oscar category since many of the Oscar hopefuls are going to make bank.
I'm very curious about A Simple Favor -- did you see it? -- what good timing for it that Henry Golding just made such a splash in Crazy Rich Asians. We're so proud of Crazy Rich Asians for taking less money than Netflix offerede and choosing theatrical distribution instead. There's no way it would have helped so much in changing the game for Asian actors if it had just been a streaming title.
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| 4. 🔺 WHITE BOY RICK $8.8 *NEW* |
4. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS $106k on 95 screens (cum. $12) Review |
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| 5. CRAZY RICH ASIANS $8.7 (cum. $149.5) Review, Yeoh, Podcast, Best of Summer Lists |
5. BLAZE $73k on 34 screens (cum. $349k) |
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| 6.PEPPERMINT $6 (cum. $24.2) |
6. 🔺 WHERE HANDS TOUCH $70k on 103 screens *NEW* |
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| 7. THE MEG $3.8 (cum. $137) Review |
7. 🔺 LIZZIE $49k on 4 screens *NEW* Review |
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| 8. SEARCHING $3.2 (cum. $19.6) Review, John Cho |
8. PUZZLE $39k on 60 screens (cum. $1.8) |
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| 9. 🔺 UNBROKEN: PATH TO REDEMPTION $2.3 *NEW* |
9. LEAVE NO TRACE $34k on 76 screens (cum. $6) |
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| 10. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT $2.3 (cum. $216.1) Review, Podcast, Best of Summer Lists | 10. 🔺WE THE ANIMALS $28k on 48 screens (cum. $338k) Review, Interview, Best of Summer Lists |
| 🔺 = new or expanding theater count numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo |
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Sadly We the Animals (hanging on at the bottom of the indie top ten) never caught on. It's so good. I suspect this is its last expansion since the per screen average is now very low.
Three movies with stars were also released with very little, if any, promotion this weekend: Julianne Moore as an opera singer in Bel Canto on two screens (it made $14,000), Gael García Bernal as a thief in Museo on one screen (it made $17,500 and it's very good!), and Emma Thompson as a conflicted judge in The Children Act on 3 screens (it made $14,000).
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?
Reader Comments (32)
I LOVED A simple favor (outside of maybe the last 5 min). Lively was mvp, funny in a biting way that leaves a mark. The plot is absurd, but the movie knows it and just goes all out. A lot of fun
That's a shame for Emma as she is really giving her best film performance in a long time,the stuff with Tucci is also interesting,he works so well with gifted actresses,she has so many scenes that scream Oscar clip but in a good way,the endings a little iffy but she is the lone reason to see it.
I didn't know they'd made a movie of Bel Canto. Once upon a time Bernardo Bertolucci was planning on making it. Good novel.
Saw Hereditary.
Good writing, directing and acting, but...
I DON'T LIKE AT ALL!!! T.T
A Simple Favor was FUN. Blake Lively gives a career best performance, but really everyone is on their game. You don't see enough films like this...I could feel everyone in my theater having a great time watching.
Re-watches of The Gingerbread Man, Diamonds are Forever, Dr. No, and Licence to Kill and first-timers in The Oslo Diaries and Affliction.
The Heiresses. It's good, but kind of bleak. Ana Brun is very good.
I am so happy for THE WIFE. This is the kind of gaining momentum that will win Close the Oscar. Give it to her now! Gaga can get the songwriting Oscar.
"Madeline's Madeline" - enjoyable and crafty but feels hermetic, a stylistic exercise a little too dazzled by its own aesthetic and narrative tricks, which I don't think amount to that much. But my gosh - Molly Parker is wonderful! Would support a nomination for her.
"We the Animals" - very good indeed. Makes gestures toward more banal coming-of-age tropes but its style, POV, and nimble handling of sexuality keep it unique. I was so moved by Evan Rosado's performance.
Is The Children Act ineligible for the Oscars since it was released on iTunes before Friday?
I saw Crazy Rich Asians (it *finally* came out in the UK - although no one here seems to be aware of it?!) - it was just as good as advertised, I laughed and I cried, and as a huge fan of the book it was one of the best adaptations I've seen.
I saw A Streetcar Named Desire on the big screen. Still coming off my high.
I did a double feature of The Wife and The Nun.
Glenn Close is as great as everyone said, but the film around her is mediocre. It feels like a less interesting 45 Years. Idk. As great as the performance is, I don't know if can see her winning with this one, even though it would make a good screener. I could even see her being snubbed. Best Actress gets more competitive by the day and I don't think she's established herself as an undeniable frontrunner.
The Nun is dreadful.
Rod: If it was released on iTunes before Friday? I'd expect so.
Thanks Volvagia. It was released on iTunes on September 11th.
Too bad.
Glenn close is hoping they “overcorrect” with Oscar and follow this win up with another pronto.
King of Thieves opened in the UK, a crime caper based on the true story of London's biggest diamond theft by a crew of aging bank robbers (Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Ray Winstone). Sounds brilliant?
Unfortunately the old geezer jokes weren't funny enough and the double crosses weren't nasty enough to make it work cinematically.
Rod & Volvagia -- it is ineligible yes. I didn't understand A24's DirectTV partnership but any film released that way is ineligible. (it's the same release structure as what happened with Babadook) where the TV or streaming for a limited subscribers comes before the theatrical.So Jamie Bell won't be eligible for Best Actor next year for "Skin" even though he's won raves for that performance because it's going the same route.
So sad about the We the Animals. It's playing in one very random, out of the way theater in Chicago. There are a bunch of more convenient theaters that show indies just like that one so I don't know why it's not playing at one of them. I'd love to see it on the big screen,
My sole movie-watching experience was Min and Bill and I loved it! It's so funny I actually laughed out loud and then it earns its heartbreaking ending, too. Marie Dressler was just a delight. I'm getting caught up on Best Actress winners and she's now one of my faves.
Thanks Nathaniel.
I don't get. It could've made around $5 million at the box office and THEN been released on iTunes. Now it won't make any impact on the box office.
I wonder if Glenn will be outspent by GaGa and the "A Star is Born" press juggernaut. They already seem to be spending millions and millions of dollars to promote that movie.
I am surprised Searching has made $32M, that seems great for a small film.
Mamma Mia 2 has made $383M worldwide, I wonder if it will hit $400M? Pure cash cow.
McBongo seems over? I can't remember the last time I saw him in a film.
DJ: check out AMC River East. It is playing there, although probably not for much longer!
Searching is only $19.8M domestic. I think Nathaniel’s assistant (a cat?) messed up the cut and paste. Already crying for the Oscar reaction shot if Glenn loses again.
I'm trying to keep the faith on Glenn and a possible Best Actress win. She's really great in The Wife. But I agree with what everyone else has said ... the movie is just not that good. I keep thinking back to those interior scenes and keep thinking ... did they get the set decorator from Saturday Night Live?
@CharlieG
Totally agree. I want to see Glenn Close win an Oscar as much as anyone but I'm open to other possibilities—The Wife is just so thin and poorly done, overall. Glenn has a fantastic final act, but everything that comes before feels so strange and low-rent.
Script, sets, supporting performances, music—all veer close to cringeworthy at times. And those flashback scenes! Ugh. I can barely even recommend it to people. What are critics thinking?! It has a 76 on Metacritic and a 86% fresh on RottenTomatoes. That feels like malpractice.
@jonathan - I know! But that theater is so inconvenient, it's practically in the lake. I can't believe it's not at the Landmark Century or Music Box. I'm hoping to see it before it leaves but probably won't.
Haven't seen The Wife yet, but it's getting mostly positive reviews with a few mediocre to negative thrown in. Each reviewer praises Close regardless of the film. I still haven't seen a stiff enough challenger yet. Think Julianne Moore's win a couple years ago for a phenomenal performance in an equally mixed-reviewed movie.
Julianne Moore won Cannes Best Actress for Maps to the Stars the same year Still Alice was released (and was coming off Don Jon, which many people liked), so she had Oscar heat just coming in to the fall festival season as Still Alice premiered. It's also important to note that she is consistently in movies that turn a profit - earlier in 2014, she was in Non-Stop, a commercial hit. And Julianne's previous four nominations occurred within the prior 17 years.
I like Glenn. But it has been a long time since she was in a commercial hit (other than Guardians of the Galaxy), and her Oscar nods (aside from Albert Nobbs, which is best forgotten) are from a long time ago - so long ago that this middle-aged person didn't even see those films in the theater. She also hasn't built up much momentum leading into The Wife.
I have seen people compare Julianne's 2014 and Glenn's 2018, and I don't think the comparison works. Granted, I am a huge Julianne Moore fan, so ymmv.
I kind of understand the Glenn Close-Julianne Moore Best Actress comparison, except Julianne's competition that year wound up being very thin.
Nah Suzanne, that pre-Still Alice “heats” was wishful thinking Stans recognising her stellar work in non Academy fare. Then Still Alice gave them good reason, you can say the film is week or the illness is most of the character, but that acting is top notch. The times have changed, no more Kerr’s or Ritter’s, the academy will search out a win for these modern grossly overdue if they keep plugging along. Bening is already going to be a winner someday, regardless of the recent shocking snubs.
I think Glenn has definitely built up a nice early buzz, given that the film premiered last year. She's on top of just about everybody's list right now, and Moore wasn't even really on the radar until TIFF, despite the fact that she had some buzz for Maps. That said, one of the many strong performances this year (Colman, Gaga, Kidman are most likely) could gain a head of steam and overtake. But as of now, I don't see anyone making that move just yet.
Nothing in theater but I did see Tom Cruise in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" - he seem miscast in this routine action picture- the character should have been played by a younger Clint Eastwood type.