Ant-Man shrinks the standard Marvel opening, Trainwreck is anything but a, Mr. Holmes effortlessly cracks The Mystery of How to Get Into the Top 10, these puns are awful even by my standards, and Other Box Office News.
So, here’s the deal. I am really frickin’ tired. Not gonna lie. I’ve been really busy these last few days working on something big, and I’m just plain not sleeping well, so Sunday night is currently not the time where my brain is most engaged. Right now, all I really want to do is lie down in bed and alternate between Phineas & Ferb and Parks & Rec episodes until my brain just collapses into Sleepsville. However, my “job” involves providing fresh Box Office Reports for your fine self to read first thing on a Monday morning, and if there is one thing that I am committed to it is my “job”! I spent just over 30 straight weeks pumping out giant DreamWorks Animation essays after all! So, let’s just try and get through this together, eh?
Keeping those doom-saying think pieces that pretty much every Box Office commenter and Internet writer has had prepped for the last three years in storage just a little while longer, Ant-Man is your new box office number 1, with $58 million in ticket sales! Of course, those think pieces could still be trotted out if everyone wanted to, as that $58 million opening is the second-worst in Marvel Cinematic Universe history (only besting The Incredible Hulk’s $55 million), but it’s only one film and a number 1 opening is still a number 1 opening however you slice it. Besides, I don’t think we need to be encouraging these things. I honestly don’t know which will be worse at this point: the incredibly smug “I told you so” attitude that every single card-carrying member of Film Twitter and Film Internet will sport when these films do start failing, or the whiney defensive attitude that will come from the part of the Internet that keeps painting Marvel as some kind of victim being bullied by Film Snobs. It’s like Aliens vs. Predator only somehow even worse than that.
In much happier news, Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck was a huge success, coming in third with $30.2 million! No, that wasn’t sarcasm. See, Trainwreck is Apatow’s second-biggest opening weekend as a director, just behind Knocked Up’s $30.6 million, and the film itself is an R-rated female-focused comedy starring an untested talent in the world of film and being released against the newest instalment in the Marvel juggernaut. This is genuinely a roaring success! Woo-hoo! Go Amy Schumer! Between this, Spy, and Pitch Perfect 2, this has been quite the year for female-fronted comedies. Now, if we could get some movies fronted by non-white female comediennes, that would be just peachy…
In “really stretching the definition of ‘limited’ release” news, Bill Condon’s excellent Mr. Holmes – a film that just missed out on my Top 5 of 2015 So Far list – crossed the pond to 363 theatres this past weekend, and managed to crack the Top 10 with $2.48 million in tickets and a respectable $6,800 per screen average. Almost matching it on 100 less screens, and perhaps another sign that Indian cinema is about to finally break somewhat big in America, was Bajrangi Bhaijaan which took $2.42 million for eleventh place and a per-screen average of $9,400. These two may even switch places when the actuals come in, but, as you all know, I only work from these final estimates cos I have sh*t to do, thank you kindly.
Meanwhile, in actual limited release news, Woody Allen’s latest “older man falls for much, much, much younger woman” tale, this one going by the name Irrational Man, made $188,000 from 5 screens of die-hard Woody Allen fanatics with nothing better going on in their lives. Everybody does know that they don’t have to help him film everything he comes up with, right?
This Full List is brought to you by the warm dulcet tones of Ringo Starr. Because Thomas the Tank Engine is featured in Ant-you know what never mind.
Box Office Results: Friday 17th July 2015 – Sunday 19th July 2015
1] Ant-Man
$58,040,000 / NEW
Saw this on Friday and the review should hopefully be up soon – it’s not yet because I didn’t finish writing it until Saturday afternoon, because my brain currently hates me, and Owen was off enjoying The First-Ever Failed Critics Meet-Up so couldn’t get to posting. Short version: I really dug this one. It has problems, but I really, really dug it! There’s a second article that’s going up later this week that may make it seem like I hate this movie, but I do actually really like it. That’s the thing about criticism, taking issue with a certain aspect doesn’t mean that the rest of the film can’t win you over! It’s almost like opinions are these multi-faceted and nuanced things or something.
2] Minions
$50,200,000 / $216,692,000
Steeper-than-expected 56% drop, which looks really bad compared to the second-week drops of the first (42%) and second (47%) Despicable Mes. But, of course, neither of those opened to $115 million domestic and this $50 million second weekend is about in line with those films’ low $30 million and low $40 million weekends. Yeah, this is doing more than OK, although that unfortunately means that Illumination now have a green-light to run this franchise into the ground. I mean, they were probably going to anyway, but now they have an excuse to.
3] Trainwreck
$30,200,000 / NEW
Absolutely cannot wait for this. Really, truly, cannot wait for this. I think that Amy Schumer is one of the most important voices in comedy right now and I am dying to see what she can with two hours and the romantic comedy template. News from America indicating that this is way more traditional and less subversive than I was hoping it would be has tempered my expectations and excitement but only slightly. Seriously: bring this baby on already!
4] Inside Out
$11,660,000 / $306,363,000
When we next meet, folks, I will have seen Inside Out. I would like to thank Owen for cordoning off review privileges for this on this site for myself and myself alone. It’s like he understands that I live to be the sole person reviewing all of the animated films. He gets me, he really does.
$11,400,000 / $611,174,000
I… I really got nothing for this one anymore, folks. Enjoy this song from Phineas & Ferb, instead.
6] Terminator: 2600
$5,400,000 / $80,640,000
I’m just going to bury my head in my hands and hope against hope that this one just goes away, if that’s alright with everyone else. Emilia Clarke deserves better, dammit!
$4,500,000 / $58,636,000
I hope this becomes a Cult Movie Night fixture. You know the ones: those special screenings full of die-hard fans who know the film front-to-back, love and appreciate every last second of it, get its progressive sexual politics completely, and are completely comfortable in their love for this movie. They’ll all meet up once every few months and make a night out of seeing this film, the cinema will provide each attendee with a roll of (convincingly) fake dollar bills to rain down upon the screen at the appropriate times, and everyone will just have the most fun and best time together shrieking in pure glee.
I hope this happens, at any rate, cos that’s a film screening experience I want to have!
8] The Gallows
$4,005,000 / $18,007,000
THIS JUST IN: Shitty Horror Movie That Nobody Liked Plummets in its Second Weekend. More at 11.
9] Ted 2
$2,700,000 / $77,457,000
So, Ted 2. I was promised some Rachael MacFarlane in your movie. I went to see your movie and I noticed no Rachael MacFarlane. I feel very much betrayed by this, and you can expect a very strongly worded letter expressing my disappointment to be along in the post shortly!
10] Mr. Holmes
$2,489,000 / NEW
I wanted to write a review of this after I saw it, but I never got around to it due to this whole “being back at home and feeling miserable” lark causing me to have trouble putting words to paper. In any case, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re sick of Sherlock Holmes adaptations cos it’s not really one. It’s more a mediation on death, aging, memory, regret, and selfishness that ties back into Sherlock Holmes in specific ways but is mostly a movie that just happens to feature Sherlock Holmes. I loved this one and cannot recommend it enough to you!
Just don’t be one of those berks who marks it down because “the mystery wasn’t that difficult or compelling” otherwise you and I will be having words.
Dropped Out: Self/Less, Baahubali: The Beginning, Max
Callie Petch is not sleeping, cold wind blowing.
Callie Petch 