With 16 features in wide release -- which is a lot given that there's usually only 10-12 with today's tendency to pack movies on 4,000+ screens -- let's cover the whole field, shall we? Plus the specialty titles in limited release because we think they're just as, if not more, important on the regular. After the jump the full chart...
Weekend Box Office
August 16th-18th (Actuals)
🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended |
W I D E
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PLATFORM / LIMITED
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1 🔺 Good Boys $21.4 *new* REVIEW ★
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1 🔺 Mission Mangal $1.3 on 263 screens *new* |
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2 Hobbs & Shaw $14.1 (cum. $133.7) REVIEW ★
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2 🔺 The Peanut Butter Falcon $287k (cum. $583k) on 49 screens REVIEW ★ |
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3 The Lion King $12.3 (cum. $496.5) REVIEW
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3 Maiden $258k on 173 screens (cum. $1.9) REVIEW ★ |
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4 🔺 Angry Birds 2 $10.3 *new*
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4 🔺 Luce $164k on 58 screens (cum. $531k) ★ |
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5 Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark $10 (cum. $40.1)
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5 Menteur $159k on 70 screens (cum. $3.9) |
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| 6 Dora and the Lost City of Gold $8.5 (cum. $33.9) REVIEW |
6 🔺 LineWalker 2 Invisible Spy $96k on 17 screens *new* |
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7🔺 47 Meters Down Uncaged $8.4 *new*
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7 🔺 After the Wedding $84k on 26 screens (cum. $156k) REVIEW |
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8 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood $7.6 (cum. $114.4) REVIEW, PODCAST ★
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8 Exit $60k on 13 screens (cum. $263k) |
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9 The Art of Racing in the Rain $4.5 (cum. $17)
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9 🔺 Tel Aviv on Fire $60k on 31 screens (cum. $233k) OPHIR NOMINEE |
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10🔺 Blinded by the Light $4.4 (cum. $16.8) REVIEW *new* ★
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10 🔺 Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am [DOC] $58k on 69 screens (cum. $729k)
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11 🔺 Where'd You Go Bernadette $3.4 REVIEW *new*
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11 🔺 Honeyland [DOC] $55k on 32 screens (cum. $210K) REVIEW ★
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12 Spider-Man Far From Home $2.8 (cum. $376.6) TOM HOLLAND, REVIEW
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12🔺 One Child Nation [DOC] $49k on 19 screens (cum. $79k) REVIEW ★
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13 The Kitchen $2.2 (cum. $10.3)
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13 David Crosby Remember My Name [DOC] $82k on 47 screens (cum. $295k)
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14 Toy Story 4 $2.1 (cum. $424.4) PODCAST, REVIEW
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14 🔺 The Nightingale $45k on 39 screens (cum. $184k)
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15 🔺 The Farewell $1.4 (cum. $12.8) PERSONAL TAKE, INTERVIEW ★
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15 Marianne & Leonard [DOC] $44k on 65 screens (cum. $862k)
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16 Brian Banks $708k (cum. $3.7)
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16 🔺 The Divine Fury $43k on 17 screens *new*
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numbers on this chart are pulled from boxofficemojo.
WIDE
Universal is one of our only lines of defense keeping Disney from owning the world. After months of Disney dominance they're currently holding the #1 and #2 movie in the top ten. Good Boys had the best opening for a R rated comedy in quite some time and its only the third original film to top the box office this year. How's that for a depressing statistic. Everything else has been sequels or remakes or spinoffs! Good Boys was the only new release to fare well since all the others came in below expectations though we suspect that Blinded by the Light might hold well next week given the audience enthusiasm for it... those who turned out at least. Oh and The Farewell finally went good and truly wide in its sixth weekend. It's earned $12+ million to date though its per screen average this weekend dipped below $2000 for the first time so it will start fading now. Sadly. It deserved better but given this marketplace a final domestic cume of something like $15 million or so is pretty damn great for a non-genre indie film with no bankable stars that's mostly in Chinese! The Oscar campaign and presumably the Blu-Ray have a great launching pad once we get there.
LIMITED
Despite limited fanfare the all female yacht racing doc Maiden has emerged as a bonafide hit, only the seventh documentary this year to cross the $1 million mark (it's currently just over $2 million) though it's beginning to fade now in its 8th week in theaters. But nothing in limited release was truly packing theaters this weekend. The weekend's best screen average went to a film that didn't even make either chart above. It was a gay drama from Argentina called End of the Century which earned $10,398 on just one screen.
What did you see this weekend? I was watching Mindhunter and various screeners for an upcoming festival jury (more on which this weekend) so I didn't hit the movies.
Monday, August 19, 2019 at 8:45PM
Reader Comments (11)
End of the Century, which closes this post, is terrific: fascinating story of a 20-year relationship(s) (note the plural there) between two (hot!) Spanish men. Beautifully filmed, intriguingly plotted, and just a lovely, thoughtful, two hours at the movies. I saw it at a film festival and wondered what the straight people made of its depiction of gay sex and relationships...
I saw AFTER THE WEDDING which I quite liked, but probably because I saw it after WHERE'D YOU GO BERNADETTE (Billy Crudup double feature!). It gave me the "mystery" that the other film sorely lacked. Plus what's better than one Oscar-caliber actress... but TWO Oscar-caliber actresses! And I can seriously watch Michelle Williams in most anything.
Also pretty sure the photo you have for that film on the chart above is wrong.
I must be in a really good mood this week because I've loved most of what I've seen.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - a little long in parts, but I loved all the 1969 re-creation and the performances (Margaret Qualley!) and - shockingly - nothing about it irritated me.
THE NIGHTINGALE - very powerful, I especially hope people go to see this in Australia. There was a Q&A with Jennifer Kent and star Baykali Ganambarr afterwards, which was interesting.
LATE NIGHT - this was light and fluffy but enjoyable. A shame all the focus is on the disappointing box office. I read after Sundance that Emma Thompson could be campaigned as Supporting Actress but she is far and away the lead. Mindy Kaling was great.
THE LION KING - I've never seen the original (!) so I was coming to this fresh. The so-called Uncanny Valley of it all didn't bother me one bit and I got caught up in the archetypal story and the music.
I'm enjoying some time off work and hoping to catch MIDSOMMAR next - but why is it so long?!
Oh and the trailer for THE MORNING SHOW looks fantastic. There's some serious Actressing going on and I *need* to see this ASAP!
End of the Century is fantastic - so odd it didn't get to play any of the major fests.
I saw a local release, DANGER CLOSE: THE BATTLE OF LONG TAN. Not bad, but not one of the great war movies, and very unlikely to have a wide reach beyond the nationalistic Australian audiences.
Finally saw Once upon a time in Hollywood and I feel that Leo aside (who is not on par with Banderas, sorry, but he is nom worthy), the real stand out for an Oscar nom and maybe win is Julia Butters, the child actress, who steals the scenary and have a great chemistry with Leo.
Aside of that, I think it is being really, really, overrated. It is a great film, for sure, but I can't give it five stars because so many scenes drag too long and feel too slow. The film is clearly 15 to 30 minutes overlong. I honestly think that Pain & Glory and Parasite (which I haven't seen yet, the latter) might have a greater shot at Picture and Director and Original Screenplay noms and wins, than Tarantino's latest. I think AMPAS might nominate this to Best Actor and Production Design and call it a day without anyone screaming out loud.
I saw Parasite for the first time and was totally engaged by its story, its convoluted story that meshes oh so intriguingly and deliciously to tell the tale of greed, class struggles (can't believe it is still relevant to say that), intense and probably doomed love, and lots of rain. Genre-wise, it might fall under the catch-all category of drama but I like to think it is an intelligently narrated ghost story. Some parts are truly funny without being cloying, other parts are savagely sad, other times, it is just savage. The first part was a beautiful examination of class-based cross purposes, the second part was the consequence of people's different intentions towards each other, towards finding happiness and love. Music is beautiful, pacing has a graceful buildup, and granular perfection of performances even supporting characters' stories have arcs that can be made into another film. While still a big fan of last year's Burning, I am positive that the more I think of Parasite, the more it'll easily settle in my top 5 this year.
Also saw After the Wedding with very good to uneven performances of the 4 leads. Although I like the Susanne Bier's Swedish version better, I thought the combined acting performances of Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore are this version's strongest suit. Julianne Moore especially. She radiates an ease and highly emotive facial expressions congruent to Theresa's story. Michelle Williams as Isabel impressed me a lot because I saw very different hues to Ms Williams' acting that I have not seen before -- her body language, her shifting emotions so vividly captured by that expressive face. Abby Quinn is also good but some parts were not that convincing to me. Same with Billy Crudup but who offered interesting beats to his role. But I thought Julianne Moore slightly outpaced Michelle Williams.
I started watching Dark on Netflix but being jetlagged made me fall asleep before I can follow Jonas Kahnwald's journey.
We saw Blinded by the Light, which was just a wonderful crowdpleaser that makes you laugh and cry and applaud. The audience was eating it up.
Rewatched Being Julia. Annette is gloriously divalicious. Sigh.
I saw Luce, which I found to be a mixed bag. Good acting from Watts, Roth, and Spencer, and an overall engaging film. The main issue was that I didn't believe in the central character as a real person, he felt like a caricature.
I saw ONCE UPON A TIME IN ....HOLLYWOOD , and boy, Tarantino is forgiven by the mediocre The Hateful Eight, loved the heartfelt homage to Hollywood, The first 2 hours is only for lovers of everything late 60s retro,great cinematography and outstanding acting.( especially Brad Pitt who is brilliant and deserves an Oscar just for being that hot at 55 ).The last 45 minutes fasten your seatbelts because classic Tarantino kicks in.
Also watched YEARS AND YEARS, Can't recommend it enough... Amazing cast ( Emma Thompson, Russell Tovey and Maxim Baldry are stellar), incredibly well written, disturbingly plausible storyline, If this show doesn't scare the shit out of you then you aren't paying attention.
Saw "Good Boys" and almost passed out from laughing. A nightmare for any parent of tweens and teens, I'm sure.
Like "American Pie", it does have some heart and some insight into adolescence and puberty and all that entails with friendship.