Audiences head straight into Compton, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s cover is blown, Mistress America takes home a Participation Award, and Other Box Office News.
Surprising absolutely nobody who is at least somewhat aware of popular culture, Straight Outta Compton is your new box office number 1. Having said that, though, I don’t think anybody was prepared for just how much of a success the thing would be. You see, Straight Outta Compton didn’t just take first place with ease, it did so with $56 million, almost $40 million more than the second place film managed. That’s an absolute domination, a ridiculous opening for a non-sequel/franchise movie, and an utterly sensational opening for a film in August which is typically a complete dead zone at the box office. I’d sit here and make terrible N.W.A, “Forgot About Dre,” and “It Was A Good Day” puns but, honestly, I’m too gobsmacked at the ridiculous success to make puns. That’s just amazing.
Similarly surprising was the complete non-performance of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. Perhaps due to a combination of an off-putting marketing campaign, that I really liked if nothing else, and tepid reviews, which are mostly wrong as you’ll find out in my own review later in the week, Guy Ritchie’s latest adventure in Hollywoodland face-planted right out of the gate. Losing the battle for second place to Mission: Impossible quite handily, The Man cried U.N.C.L.E. – eh? Eh? EH?! – and bowed out for the weekend with only $13.5 million. Nice to see that the Warner Bros. “funding off-beat and often great blockbusters with loads of money only to see bugger-all people turn up to watch” streak is still intact, if nothing else.
Whilst we’re still affixing our eye to the Top 10, let’s briefly check back in with everyone’s favourite complete and total catastrophic failure, Fantastic 4. After failing to achieve the number 1 slot last week and earning roughly half of what it was projected to, the film continued its magnificent spiral of humiliation with a near 70% drop between this past weekend and opening weekend. Enjoy looking at this one, folks. This is the kind of old-school catastrophe that modern Hollywood was supposedly designed to completely avoid. It’s a beautiful sight, like a unicorn grazing underneath a double rainbow.
In the realm of limited releases, Noah Baumbach’s second film this year, Mistress America, did surprisingly poorly. I mean, sure, we’re talking very relatively when I say that $94,000 from 4 theatres is poor. But Baumbach usually has much better openings than this. Hell, he already had one such opening earlier this year when While We’re Young opened to $227,688 from 4 screens, whilst his last collaboration with Greta Gerwig, 2013’s Frances Ha, opened to $137,398 from 4 screens. Maybe, just maybe, audiences are getting sick of movies about annoying self-obsessed New Yorkers. Wouldn’t that be something? Meanwhile, the Jemaine Clement-starring People Places Things Nouns got off to a poor start on 19 screens with just $31,000 for a per-screen average of $1,632.
The jury has found this Full List guilty of being a redneck, white bread, chickensh*t motherf*cker.
Box Office Results: Friday 14th August 2015 – Sunday 16th August 2015
1] Straight Outta Compton
$56,100,000 / NEW
Man, I really cannot wait for this! That’s literally all I’ve got for this one, since I haven’t managed to listen to Dre’s “Compton” yet – that’s a job for tonight, before anyone asks. I will note, however, that an opening like this is yet another sign that mid-budget stories about non-White protagonists, starring a non-White cast and aimed at predominately-non-White audiences are a lucrative and untapped market. A sign that, as per usual, will most likely go stringently ignored by Hollywood.
2] Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
$17,000,000 / $138,137,000
Man From U.N.C.L.E. outclasses this movie in every respect. Just thought I’d let you know that.
3] The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
$13,535,000 / NEW
Saw this on Friday and the review will be up tomorrow [FUTURE EDIT: didn’t happen]. Short version: probably the best non-Fury Road blockbuster I’ve seen all year. Lot of fun, lots going on under the hood, and impeccably acted with Alicia Vikander nearly running away with the film from everyone else. It’s the first time that “Guy Ritchie, Hollywood Director” has made sense to me, and not coincidentally is the first time he was allowed a crack at the script, so it’s a shame that the film’s box office failure sadly guarantees that we’ll be getting “Hired Gun, Guy Ritchie” for the next few years.
4] Fantastic 4
$8,000,000 / $41,961,000
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (*continues like so for another 15 minutes*)
5] The Gift
$6,500,000 / $23,577,000
Don’t even talk to me about the ending of this. Seriously, it’s been well over a week and I still can’t make up my mind on it. Or, more specifically, I can’t stop trying to rationalise an objectively disgusting and too-far ending as honestly kind of brilliant. Jackson noted that I basically already summed it up when I described the whole film as “very Fincher”, but I still can’t let this go. If nothing else, at least The Gift has stuck with me a week later, unlike the very vast majority of films that have been released so far this year.
6] Ant-Man
$5,517,000 / $157,568,000
Emily Blunt for Carol Danvers, please! Seriously, it’s perfect casting. She’s got the acting chops, Edge of Tomorrow proved that she can be a walking badass when required, she’s more than willing to dye her hair blonde if that’s necessary, she was already going to be Black Widow until Fox forced her to do Gulliver’s Travels instead, and she’s English which continues the superhero movie tradition of casting British leads in American hero roles! Come on, it’s a no-brainer!
I mean, unless the Bond producers do the right thing and cast her as the next Bond. Either of these two things happening will satisfy me.
7] Vacation
$5,330,000 / $46,852,000
Once I’ve finished my Man From U.N.C.L.E. review after this, I’ll be sitting down to watch the original National Lampoon’s Vacation in preparation for Friday. Not Tuesday, what’s the point of going to a Cineworld Unlimited Screening for a film that’s out about 48 hours later and looks terrible? Ugh, Unlimited screenings have been going down the drain recently…
Hmm? “The next one’s Sicario, two weeks before its UK release”? Oh, Cineworld! Have I ever told you how much I love you?
8] Minions
$5,200,000 / $312,969,000
A round of applause for Universal Studios becoming the fastest studio to break $2 billion domestic in a single year, besting Warner Bros.’ previous record by a good four months! That’s what happens when you release a whole load of good films that people want to see… and are also part of really successful franchises. OK, I guess we should probably temper that applause slightly, this was basically already predetermined by merely looking at that release schedule.
9] Ricki and the Flash
$4,570,000 / $14,656,000
Oh. Well, err, bye Ricki, I guess.
10] Trainwreck
$3,800,000 / $97,919,000
Review will be up on Wednesday [FUTURE EDIT: never even started]. Gonna keep my opinion under-wraps until then, in a failed attempt to build up suspense and intrigue. I will, though, let slip that I can now happily count the number of good comedies released this year on 3 fingers. That is also a sentence that looks incredibly depressing typed out like that. This goddamn year…
Callie Petch is nine exits north of Las Vegas.
Callie Petch 