Rings only needs three days to die, has a large space between it and The Space Between Us, there’s really not a lot else to talk about, and Other Box Office News.
You all know me, folks. I am a simple man. I like having a nice stream of new release films to see each weekend. I like not laying around at home in a depressed funk because of my life being in a rut that I am partially complicit in due to not doing anything active to get out of said. I like being able to take a day or two out every now and again to play Rock Band and watch a load of Saturday Night Live clips because I am trash. And I like having interesting stuff happen on the US Box Office chart so that I have actual content for this series of articles instead of having to talk about myself or, worse, put in actual work. Unfortunately for us all, however, this was Super Bowl Weekend, and the movie studios responded as they always do on the first weekend of February by releasing jack-shit.
Maybe-Only-10%-Actual-Football’s stranglehold over the weekend led to a chart with basically nothing of interest going on and even less being released into cinemas. On the bright side, it did give Paramount a chance to finally dump Rings out of its system, like a particularly painful gall stone that just won’t quit. Fittingly for a studio that, between this and Monster Trucks and the eventual Friday the 13th re-reboot that they are doggedly committed to for some reason, appears to be spending its 2017 getting awful films that not even the studio execs want off of their hands, Rings still didn’t really do so hot for the studio even with heavily-reduced expectations. Falling to Split’s threepeat at the top of the chart, Rings only managed to bank $13 million for the weekend, and is pretty much guaranteed a swift departure from the chart with its “C-“ Cinemascore. Good thing everybody chose to collectively save their pennies for the actual Gore Verbinski horror movie out later this month.
As for the weekend’s other nationwide release, The Space Between Us… get it? The Space Between Us? Because he’s a SPACEMAN, and she’s an EARTH WOMAN, and it’s a love story! There’s actual space between them! BECAUSE LITERAL SPACE! This is the kind of gold you get when you hire the writer of Collateral Beauty, folks! Ah… Anyway, this was also shunted around the schedule, dumped into cinemas on Super Bowl Weekend to just be done with it, and burned up totally on entry. Although, to be fair, it’s done a lot better than most unwanted Wide releases of films in recent weeks, actually managing to break into the Top 10 at #9 with $3.8 million! This officially makes it more of a success than Live by Night or Gold ever were, which is a victory I am sure that STX are taking note of for their Home Media marketing campaign right now.
There are a couple of Limited Release announcements, but I also don’t really know much about them or have many snarkable avenues to take things down, so apologies for the dryness that’s about to take over the next few sentences. The Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro finally got its theatrical start this past weekend on 43 screens where it took home $709,500 from 43 screens, for an excellent $16,500 per-screen average. I’d say that it was the only real success of the weekend, but doing so would be to take due credit away from Jamal Joseph’s Chapter & Verse, which has spent two years sat in release limbo only to finally get its chance to shine today. And shine it (sort of) did, pulling in $32,713 from its one theatre in Harlem. Meanwhile, Robert DeNiro continued his… well, it’s not even really a “slump” anymore, is it? More just “his career now.” Anywho, The Comedian awkwardly bombed in front of everybody with just $1.1 million from 848 screens. Finally, the absolutely bananas-sounding The Lure opened up to $6,500 from its singular screen. No, seriously, it’s a Polish horror-musical about mermaids, go look it up, it sounds nuts.
Here’s your Full List. The next one will be along in seven days.
US Box Office Results: Friday 3rd February 2017 – Sunday 5th February 2017
1] Split
$14,584,485 / $98,700,500
OK, I’m all out of things to say about this movie. Can I instead use this time to mention just how super-hyped I am for Get Out? Every single word about that film that I have heard out of Sundance just makes it sound like the best goddamn time! I’ve informed Lucy that I am willing to break my usual “No Horror Movies in Cinemas” rule/phobia in order to go see it, so there’s that to look forward to!
2] Rings
$13,000,000 / NEW
“Screenplay co-written by Akiva Goldsman.” Yeah, well, err, that kind of explains a lot. How does this man keep getting hired? And why do people seem to believe that “From the Academy Award-winning writer of A Beautiful Mind” is a selling point of any kind? Have those people actually watched A Beautiful Mind?
3] A Dog’s Purpose
$10,824,830 / $32,926,095
Those abuse allegations turned out to be false, for the record, so we’re all just going to have to go back to hating it for the far less loaded reason: it looks fucking terrible. I got a trailer for this before a film this weekend, and was awestruck by just how terrible it looked. Even Josh Gad seems to realise how terrible it is, and he’s been paid money to be the least involved member of it!
4] Hidden Figures
$10,100,000 / $119,402,095
Janelle Monáe was excellent in her little part in Moonlight. Just the absolute perfect contrast to Naomie Harris’s painful, toxic character work despite only appearing in it for a very short while. I’m really excited to see what she can pull off when given screen time. I should probably also finally listen to her music as well, come to think of it.
5] La La Land
$7,450,000 / $118,306,924
Went and saw this again on Saturday night and, guess what, I loved it a second time! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT, HUH?! HUH?! NOTHING!
6] Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
$4,500,000 / $21,851,775
And after looking at the International takings for this one compared to previous entries in the franchise, I think it’s safe to say that this is one time where a film’s subtitle of “The Final Chapter” won’t end up being a misnomer.
7] Sing
$4,080,715 / $262,907,195
The LEGO Batman Movie got a set of weekend preview screenings over here in good ol’ Blighty this past weekend, so a review of that will be along tomorrow. Short preview version, though: you’re gonna wanna book your tickets now. It is that good.
8] Lion
$4,006,000 / $24,711,674
Now, I did say that I would pitch a huge shitfit if Lion was sorry hang on a moment. My spellcheck for Word did not put a wiggly red line underneath the word “shitfit!” Is that actually a real word, recognised by linguistics and dictionaries and shit? OK, that’s just weird to me, especially given just how many other words I and my friends use in our day-to-day lives that get called out by the Spellchecker Judgement of Shame on here! I refuse to believe that I don’t talk so good, y’all hear me, Non-Sentient Computer Machine?!
…right, what was I supposed to be talking about? Lion? Oh, who cares about that piece of shit, fuck it.
9] The Space Between Us
$3,820,000 / NEW
This and Collateral Beauty share the same pen behind at least some of So Undercover, Here Comes the Boom, The Switch, 21, Just Go with It, and the Rock of Ages movie. I think Allan Loeb’s work and I are going to become very fast friends with each other on Bad Movie Nights.
10] xXx: Return of Xander Cage
$3,700,000 / $40,024,887
Well, there goes any chance of seeing Nina Dobrev’s Kinzie Kensington impression or Donnie Yen teaming up with Vin Diesel for barely-coherent and unnecessary reasons because HE’S KICKING AN ENTIRE ARMY SQUADREN’S ASS IN A CARGO PLANE THAT IS IN FREEFALL again. Damn shame, that. It’s a real dumb film, but it’s my kind of dumb film, and its failure to ignite with people other than myself upsets me. Well, maybe not “upsets,” per se. More of a “slightly melancholic and resigned ‘oh’ with little feeling or passion behind it.”
Dropped Out: Rogue One, Monster Trucks, Gold
Callie Petch ain’t moving in the right direction.
Callie Petch 