What did you see this weekend? I binged Heartstoppers on Netflix (having loved the webcomic it was based on), watched a few Coachella performances (Orville Peck, Maggie Rogers, and Finneas) but the highlight was definitely trekking to the theater to see The Northman with friends. Make sure to listen in to conversations from your fellow moviegoers if you see it. You'll hear lots of variations of "that was insane". The sweat lodge / Dafoe scene early in the film and the big Kidman monologue scene late in the film really get people talking if our Friday night eavesdropping was any general indication. Perhaps we should do a spoiler-heavy review (for those who've seen it only -- you should not read reviews before you see this one).
| Weekend Box Office April 22nd-24th 🔺 = new or expanding / ✅ = recommended |
|
 THE NORTHMAN |
 EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE... |
| 1 🔺 THE BAD GUYS $24 |
6 ✅ EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE $5.4 (cum. $26.9) |
| 2 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 ★ $15.2 (cum. $145.8) | 2 ✅ THE LOST CITY $4.3 (cum. $85.4) REVIEW |
| 3 FANTASTIC BEASTS 3 $14 (cum. $67.1) | 3 FATHER STU $3.3 (cum. $13.8) REVIEW |
| 4 ✅ 🔺 THE NORTHMAN $12 YES NO MAYBE SO | 4 MORBIUS $2.2 (cum. $69.1) REVIEW |
|
5 🔺 THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT $7.1 |
5 ✅ AMBULANCE $1.8 (cum. $19.1) |
Though audiences still showed that they're lazy and prefer sequels, it's good news that three originals opened at once and they all did okay. The Bad Guys scored best (animated films often do) and while The Northman's $12 million opening isnt spectacular it's also just fine given that it's an original movie for adults. Nicolas Cage's action comedy Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent also did decent business.
With holdovers Everything Everywhere All At Once continues to generate strong word of mouth and dropped only 12% in its 5th weekend which is really incredible. Others had bigger drops of course. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is struggling (comparative to the franchise that is) and suffered a big drop of nearly 67% in its second weekend. Do you think Warner Bros will greenlight a fourth film or put the franchise on ice for a bit? You KNOW it's not too far off before they just reboot Harry Potter and start with new little kids in wizarding school given our regurgitated remake and franchise culture. If there can be dozens of iterations of Spider-Man and Batman in the past 20-25 years the studios can definitely get away with a Harry Potter do-over.
The weekend's best per-screen average went to the beautifully executive French artfilm Petite Mama (in our top ten for 2021) which NEON finally got around to releasing (albeit only on four screens). They Oscar-qualified it last year.