Ben-Who? Weekend Box Office

The name "Ben-Hur" wasn't enough of a brand on its own to lure moviegoers to theaters this weekend for the remake. My guess: Those who know of Ben-Hur love the 1959 version too much to care about a 2016 version. I have zero desire to see it so if you dared the movie theater this weekend to do so, tell me this: did any of the 1925 sensuality or the 1959 homoeroticism survive in the 2016 version. Or is this just all antiseptic generic blockbuster action mode? 

Ben Hur in 1959, 2016, and 1925If you didn't see Ben-Hur, what did you see? Did you like it? More after the jump including the fate of Kubo and the Two Strings and the best thing I saw this weekend...

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Box Office: 'Sausage Party' Is An Animated Adult Smash

This weekend while Suicide Squad suffered one of the biggest superhero second weekend dropoffs ever and Pete's Dragon had one of the mildest starts for a Disney remake, Sausage Party was breaking box office ground for adult animation. The high concept comedy had the biggest opening ever for animated film meant for grown-ups, passing 2007's violent Beowulf (apologies for reminding you of its existence).

While Party is unlikely to repeat the animation for grownups Oscar nomination breakthrough that Anomalisa achieved last year, this strong box office opening shows that medium doesn't need to appeal to the kiddies to be commercially viable. The most popular toons often become so partly because they are equally embraced by adults - we love animation just as much, so the rarity of one aimed squarely at us remains perplexing. Sausage Party is on track to surpass South Park - Bigger, Longer, and Uncut's business, so maybe we'll at least get more bawdy animated comedies if not the type of character dramas that Anomalisa was trying to deliver.

TOP TEN

01 Suicide Squad $43.7M (cum $222.9M) Review
02 Sausage Party $33.6M NEW
03 Pete's Dragon $21.5M NEW Review
04 Jason Bourne $13.6M (cum $126.8M) Review
05 Bad Moms $11.4M (cum $71.4M)
06 The Secret Lives of Pets $8.8M (cum $335.9M)
07 Star Trek Beyond $6.8M (cum $139.7M) Review
08 Florence Foster Jenkins $6.6M NEW Review
09 Nine Lives $3.5M (cum $13.5M)
10 Lights Out $3.2M (cum $61.1M)

Limited releases were mostly quiet this weekend, with the biggest winner being the well-reviewed Texas crime drama Hell or High Water. Led by Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster, the film grossed $592,000 at 32 theatres for the weekend's per screen average of almost $19K.

What did you see this weekend??

Box Office Special: When Films are Bigger Abroad...

What did you see this weekend?

Let's ignore Suicide Squad's big box office weekend (read Lynn's review here) as that story is overworked already given the months of hoopla on the internet and the expected fact of a very big weekend (that's what happens with much-hyped superhero films). Instead for the weekend box office column, let's talk about a situation that occurs each year in terms of different preferences in blockbusters around the globe. Those differences sometimes go a long way in explaining why some franchises never die (Hello, Ice Age) even long past their natural expiration dates. Though Finding Dory has easily topped the domestic charts in the US to become 2016's champ, it couldn't reach the global power of Captain America: Civil War (#1), Zootopia (#2) or The Jungle Book (#3) worldwide. Taste and success do vary across borders.

Stephen Chow's "The Mermaid" is the 7th biggest hit of 2016... but it did only $3 million in the US

After the jump let's look at the titles from 2016 with less than a third of their treasure chests coming from the US (currently the biggest film market though China will reportedly surpass us soon). What can we learn from this list?

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Box Office Bourne Again

Off blog my weekend was rough so I didn't make it to the movies. But here's to hoping you did. Nostalgia for Matt Damon's return to the Bourne franchise was greeted with enthusiam by moviegoers and what suffered as a result was nostalgia for another return over at Star Trek Beyond which took a big tumble in its second weekend. Meanwhile yet another nostalgia play (it's all about revivals these days) Ghostbusters became yet another $100 million domestic hit for Melissa McCarthy (she has six of them now) though the problem with this one is that it cost far more than her other films to make.

In other box office news: Cafe Society is about to outgross Woody Allen's last feature (Irrational Man) and it's only been out for a week; The Legend of Tarzan is now the 11th most popular film of the year (but with its hefty price tag will it get a sequel?); and if you want to see Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic (which you really should because it's quite good) get to it in the next couple of days because it's per screen average didn't fare too well with this weekend's significant expansion so it's unlikely to stick around much longer; and we can maybe finally say goodbye to the Ice Age franchise on their fifth outing. Their international box office is what's been keeping the series afloat but the fifth film is significantly underperforming so cross your fingers if you're screaming "enough already" every time that once funny squirrel bounces across your movie theater screens chasing a nut in a trailer. 

TOP TWENTY
🔺01 Jason Bourne $60 NEW Review 
▫️ 02 Star Trek Beyond $24 (cum. $105.7) Review
🔺03 Bad Moms $23.4 NEW
🔻04 Secret Life of Pets $18.2 (cum. $296.1) 
🔺05 Lights Out $10.8 (cum. $42.8) 
🔺06 Ice Age Collison Course $10.5 (cum. $42.1)
🔻07 Ghostbusters $9.8 (cum. $106.1) Review
🔺08 Nerve $9 NEW 
🔻09 Finding Dory $4.2 (cum. $469)  Review
🔻10 Legend of Tarzan $2.4 (cum. $121.8) Review
🔻11 Hillary's America $2.3 (cum. $8.6)
🔺12 Cafe Society $2.2 ($3.9) LIMITED RELEASE Review
🔻13 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates $1.4 (cum. $43.9) Review
🔺14 Captain Fantastic $1 (cum. $2.4) LIMITED RELEASE Review
🔻15 Central Intelligence $910K (cum. $125.3)
🔻16 The Infiltrator $817K (cum. $14.3)  Review
🔺17 Absolutely Fabulous $800K (cum. $3.3) LIMITED RELEASE Review, Production Design
🔻18 Purge: Election Year $703K (cum. $78.3)
🔻19 BFG $416K ($52.1) Review
🔻20 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $350K (cum. $2.9) LIMITED RELEASE Review 

What movies did you catch this past weekend?

Next weekend Suicide Squad opens and will surely dominate the conversation and may well feel like the end of summer movie season though there are a few weeks left of that. The really interesting contest is the following week when Florence Foster Jenkins battles both Pete's Dragon and those anthropomorphic R rated food items from Sausage Party.  Tough to say which film might survive that brawl.

Box Office: Ghostbusters, Sultan, Café Society

Though the new Ghostbusters couldn't defeat the very family friendly Secret Life of Pets to take the box office crown, it was still a win for Paul Feig & Melissa McCarthy company (their best opening yet, just beating their previous best for The Heat). Other winners this weekend: Sultan, the Bollywood sports drama starring Salman Khan, is now the #1 foreign language release of the year, jumping over the Chinese hits The Mermaid and Ip Man 3; Woody Allen's Café Society experienced more demand in its opening weekend than of his films since Blue Jasmine; and, finally, the provocative survivalist family drama Captain Fantastic led by a typically sterling Viggo Mortensen expanded fairly well. Next weekend will be key for Captain Fantastic with word of mouth; there's neither anything like it in the marketplace nor really anything to compare it to in ages (since maybe The Mosquito Coast in the Eighties?) but unfortunately that much originality in topic and purpose usually hurts movies at the box office in this era of intense branding.

TOP WIDE
800+ screens. arrows indicate gaining or losing screens
🔺01 The Secret Life of Pets $50.5 (cum. $203.1) 
🔺02 Ghostbusters $46 NEW Review 
🔻03 The Legend of Tarzan $11.1 (cum. $103) Review 
🔻04 Finding Dory $11 (cum. $445.5)  Review
🔺05 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates $7.5 (cum. $31.3) Review
🔻06 The Purge: Election Year $6 (cum. $71)
🔻07 Central Intelligence $5.3 (cum. $117.5)
🔺08 The Infiltrator $5.2 (cum. $6.7) NEW Review
🔻09 The BFG $3.7 (cum. $47.3) Review
🔻10 Independence Day: Ressurection $3.4 (cum. $6.7) 

Sultan is now the #1 foreign hit of the yearTOP LIMITED
Excluding previously wide. 
🔻01 Sultan $985K (cum. $5.2)
🔻02 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $563K ($1.4) Review 
🔺03 Cafe Society $355K NEW Review
🔺04 Captain Fantastic $277K (cum. $406K) Review
🔻05 Swiss Army Man $262K (cum. $3.7) Halfway Mark Achievements

What movies did you catch this week?

Beyond Captain Fantastic and Ghostbusters, I Netflixed it bingeing Stranger Things (we'll talk about it soon) and finally finishing Grace and Frankie Season 2, and I apologize that I didn't have Estelle Parsons on my Guest Actress ballot for Comedy and that Emmy didn't nominate her either. This is why they need blue-ribbon panels; there are just too many eligible shows that voters aren't taking seriously that contain better specific performances than the shows they vote for reflexively in all categories as we saw all over the Emmy nominations.