Tranny Tackles the Cinema: The Films of 5/25
Posted: May 22nd, 2018, 2:33 pm
After a 3 week reign of terror atop the box office, Thanos was finally defeated by the Merc with a Mouth's second coming.
Deadpool 2 continued 2018's superhero dominance with a strong $125.5 mil debut. While it unsurprisingly fell a bit short of its predecessor's record-breaking $132 mil haul, the David Leitch-helmed sequel was able to beat out last year's It for the 2nd-biggest OW gross for an R-rated film ever. If it plays like the previous installment, which is far from a lock considering this one is facing far stiffer competition than the original did in the winter/spring of 2016, Wade Wilson's latest ultraviolent, meta humor-filled adventure should finish with around $350 mil domestically.
Despite being knocked out of the top spot, Infinity War was still able to gross a ridiculous $29.4 mil in its 4th weekend of release. It probably doesn't have enough juice to top Black Panther's nearly $700 mil domestic run, but it's a lock to become the 2nd-highest grossing film in the history of the MCU as well as a strong bet to beat out every other tentpole set for release over the remaining summer months, if not the rest of the year.
It was also a good weekend for the horned-up senior citizens of the world as the Fifty Shades of Grey-inspired bluehead comedy Book Club dampened matinee seats with something other than urine or Crystal Light for once, putting up a steamy $13.6 mil in its first three days of release. Gertrude and Agnes will probably encourage their friends at bingo to go check out this fabulous* moving picture at their local multiplex, which should help turn this into another victory for Paramount-who appears to be on the verge of having a nice bounceback year after a brutal 2017.
(*I used the world fabulous because its the word my 83-year old grandmother uses to describe she every film she enjoys.)
A24's latest acclaimed drama First Reformed dominated fellow limited openers On Chesil Beach and Pope Francis-A Man of His Word with a solid $24,391 PTA average in 4 theaters. This is almost double what Lean on Pete opened with last month and with a pretty small number of limited releases hitting theaters over the next few weeks, Paul Schrader's somber film about a military chaplain (Ethan Hawke) that begins to question his faith after his son, who he encouraged to enlist in the Army, is killed in combat could end up accumulating double-digit PTA points by the end of its run.
Wide Release:
For the first time since George Lucas (permanently) handed over the creative reins to the franchise that helped give him the finances to build a sprawling, secluded nerd fortress in Northern California named after a character he created, a Star Wars film is coming out during the summer. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Disney), an origin story about a beloved character that the fatcats at Disney unceremoniously murdered once they got their filthy mouse paws on this franchise, seems like an attempt to return to the series to its straightforward, rollicking roots after the remarkably polarizing The Last Jedi sent the internet into a thinkpiece-and-petition-filled sea of visceral emotional reactions last December. This throwback feature goes back to the days when the galaxy's most notorious smuggler, played here by Hail, Caesar! star Alden Ehrenreich, was just a young, suave knucklehead getting into trouble with his Wookiee cohort Chewbacca. Young Han and Chewy soon join up with a ragtag team of criminals that we don't know (Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Thandie Newton) as well as old friend Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover, whose performance seems to be the only thing about the film that the people that have already seen it are fawning over at the moment) to pull off some kind of crazy space heist that the studio feels compelled to keep a secret for the time being.
As I alluded to earlier, Solo's is the first entry in the rebooted Star Wars universe that isn't a guaranteed $500 mil+ domestic sensation. The Last Jedi's comparatively lukewarm reception, well-publicized production issues that resulted in Ron Howard taking over directorial duties in the middle of filming and the fact that this will be the fourth Star Wars film released in the last 30 months have combined to cast a shadow of doubt surrounding Solo's BO potential that seemed inconceivable as recently as last Thanksgiving. I'm not going to be the reactionary asshole that declares that there's no way that Solo clears $500 mil, but the early indications from within the industry that suggest this could gross well under the half-century mark in the good ol' USA is a stunning development that could eventually lead to trouble for a studio that was banking on keeping this Star Wars gravy train chugging along without a hitch for the next zillion years.
Even with this healthy amount of red flags and question marks attached to its name, Solo should do just fine for the purposes of our game. Star Wars flicks are going to be able to generate considerable interest, regardless of the outside noise plus it's the only film available this season besides Jurassic World that is guaranteed to win back-to-back weekends. I'm expecting young Han's 1st adventure to post a $133 mil OW ($158 mil 4-day), 16 Top 5, 11 PTA, an IMDB score in the low-to-mid 7's and a final gross around $385 mil. It might not be the no-brainer slate anchor that its predecessors were, but Solo, which will run you $50 in BO and $42-43 in ULT, should make for a good-to-great pickup in both formats.
Limited Release:
Summer 1993 (Oscilloscope) is a film you can apply the "well-reviewed foreign film that's not overly appealing to American audiences" tag to. Spain's official entry into last year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race, which currently boasts a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, is an autobiographical tale from director Carla Simon about a 6-year old that goes to live with her uncle in the Spanish countryside after her parents die from AIDS. If (most) subtitled films weren't such a hard sell in the U.S., this could've very well turned into a breakout hit on the indie circuit, but that's just the harsh reality of the American specialty film market. Even with the language barrier and Oscilloscope's less-than-stellar track record, it's standing as the game's sole new limited release paired with a relatively small number of viable wide releases currently out there gives Summer 1993 a decent chance to secure some PTA points this weekend to go along with its relatively strong IMDb score (7.2). If you're looking for a $2 cherry to put on the top of your ULT slate, you could do a lot worse than this.
Weekend Projections:
1.Solo $133 mil ($158 mil 4-day)
2.Deadpool 2 $48 mil ($63 mil 4-day)
3.Avengers: Infinity War $15 mil ($22 mil $4-day)
4.Book Club $8 mil ($12.5 4-day)
5.Life of the Party $4 mil ($7 mil 4-day)
PTA: Solo, Deadpool 2, First Reformed, Summer 1993, Avengers: Infinity War
Tune in next week when Boosh offers up his takes on Johnny Knoxville's latest stuntfest Action Point, Me Before You on the Seven Seas (aka Adrift), fact-based indie heist flick American Animals, tech-driven B-actioner Upgrade and Cohen Media Group's latest arthouse sensation Rodin.
Deadpool 2 continued 2018's superhero dominance with a strong $125.5 mil debut. While it unsurprisingly fell a bit short of its predecessor's record-breaking $132 mil haul, the David Leitch-helmed sequel was able to beat out last year's It for the 2nd-biggest OW gross for an R-rated film ever. If it plays like the previous installment, which is far from a lock considering this one is facing far stiffer competition than the original did in the winter/spring of 2016, Wade Wilson's latest ultraviolent, meta humor-filled adventure should finish with around $350 mil domestically.
Despite being knocked out of the top spot, Infinity War was still able to gross a ridiculous $29.4 mil in its 4th weekend of release. It probably doesn't have enough juice to top Black Panther's nearly $700 mil domestic run, but it's a lock to become the 2nd-highest grossing film in the history of the MCU as well as a strong bet to beat out every other tentpole set for release over the remaining summer months, if not the rest of the year.
It was also a good weekend for the horned-up senior citizens of the world as the Fifty Shades of Grey-inspired bluehead comedy Book Club dampened matinee seats with something other than urine or Crystal Light for once, putting up a steamy $13.6 mil in its first three days of release. Gertrude and Agnes will probably encourage their friends at bingo to go check out this fabulous* moving picture at their local multiplex, which should help turn this into another victory for Paramount-who appears to be on the verge of having a nice bounceback year after a brutal 2017.
(*I used the world fabulous because its the word my 83-year old grandmother uses to describe she every film she enjoys.)
A24's latest acclaimed drama First Reformed dominated fellow limited openers On Chesil Beach and Pope Francis-A Man of His Word with a solid $24,391 PTA average in 4 theaters. This is almost double what Lean on Pete opened with last month and with a pretty small number of limited releases hitting theaters over the next few weeks, Paul Schrader's somber film about a military chaplain (Ethan Hawke) that begins to question his faith after his son, who he encouraged to enlist in the Army, is killed in combat could end up accumulating double-digit PTA points by the end of its run.
Wide Release:
For the first time since George Lucas (permanently) handed over the creative reins to the franchise that helped give him the finances to build a sprawling, secluded nerd fortress in Northern California named after a character he created, a Star Wars film is coming out during the summer. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Disney), an origin story about a beloved character that the fatcats at Disney unceremoniously murdered once they got their filthy mouse paws on this franchise, seems like an attempt to return to the series to its straightforward, rollicking roots after the remarkably polarizing The Last Jedi sent the internet into a thinkpiece-and-petition-filled sea of visceral emotional reactions last December. This throwback feature goes back to the days when the galaxy's most notorious smuggler, played here by Hail, Caesar! star Alden Ehrenreich, was just a young, suave knucklehead getting into trouble with his Wookiee cohort Chewbacca. Young Han and Chewy soon join up with a ragtag team of criminals that we don't know (Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Thandie Newton) as well as old friend Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover, whose performance seems to be the only thing about the film that the people that have already seen it are fawning over at the moment) to pull off some kind of crazy space heist that the studio feels compelled to keep a secret for the time being.
As I alluded to earlier, Solo's is the first entry in the rebooted Star Wars universe that isn't a guaranteed $500 mil+ domestic sensation. The Last Jedi's comparatively lukewarm reception, well-publicized production issues that resulted in Ron Howard taking over directorial duties in the middle of filming and the fact that this will be the fourth Star Wars film released in the last 30 months have combined to cast a shadow of doubt surrounding Solo's BO potential that seemed inconceivable as recently as last Thanksgiving. I'm not going to be the reactionary asshole that declares that there's no way that Solo clears $500 mil, but the early indications from within the industry that suggest this could gross well under the half-century mark in the good ol' USA is a stunning development that could eventually lead to trouble for a studio that was banking on keeping this Star Wars gravy train chugging along without a hitch for the next zillion years.
Even with this healthy amount of red flags and question marks attached to its name, Solo should do just fine for the purposes of our game. Star Wars flicks are going to be able to generate considerable interest, regardless of the outside noise plus it's the only film available this season besides Jurassic World that is guaranteed to win back-to-back weekends. I'm expecting young Han's 1st adventure to post a $133 mil OW ($158 mil 4-day), 16 Top 5, 11 PTA, an IMDB score in the low-to-mid 7's and a final gross around $385 mil. It might not be the no-brainer slate anchor that its predecessors were, but Solo, which will run you $50 in BO and $42-43 in ULT, should make for a good-to-great pickup in both formats.
Limited Release:
Summer 1993 (Oscilloscope) is a film you can apply the "well-reviewed foreign film that's not overly appealing to American audiences" tag to. Spain's official entry into last year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race, which currently boasts a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, is an autobiographical tale from director Carla Simon about a 6-year old that goes to live with her uncle in the Spanish countryside after her parents die from AIDS. If (most) subtitled films weren't such a hard sell in the U.S., this could've very well turned into a breakout hit on the indie circuit, but that's just the harsh reality of the American specialty film market. Even with the language barrier and Oscilloscope's less-than-stellar track record, it's standing as the game's sole new limited release paired with a relatively small number of viable wide releases currently out there gives Summer 1993 a decent chance to secure some PTA points this weekend to go along with its relatively strong IMDb score (7.2). If you're looking for a $2 cherry to put on the top of your ULT slate, you could do a lot worse than this.
Weekend Projections:
1.Solo $133 mil ($158 mil 4-day)
2.Deadpool 2 $48 mil ($63 mil 4-day)
3.Avengers: Infinity War $15 mil ($22 mil $4-day)
4.Book Club $8 mil ($12.5 4-day)
5.Life of the Party $4 mil ($7 mil 4-day)
PTA: Solo, Deadpool 2, First Reformed, Summer 1993, Avengers: Infinity War
Tune in next week when Boosh offers up his takes on Johnny Knoxville's latest stuntfest Action Point, Me Before You on the Seven Seas (aka Adrift), fact-based indie heist flick American Animals, tech-driven B-actioner Upgrade and Cohen Media Group's latest arthouse sensation Rodin.