Walleye's Weekly Winners: The Films of 7/28
Posted: July 25th, 2018, 1:46 pm
In an epic smackdown of Movie Titans – Denzel Washington proved greater than Meryl Streep and Cher combined! Long live the King! In what was certainly one of the most exciting weekends we’ve had at the Box Office this Summer – A bunch of sequels were topped by the 2 newest sequels on the market. The Equalizer 2 was Denzel’s first sequel and it surprised pretty much everyone by topping the weekend with 36 million. Its legs won’t be as long or as nice as the ladies from Mamma Mia, however, who did quite well on their own thank you very much. In the PTA fight it was really a fight, won once again by an Eighth Grade rock star, who took down the great McQueen (A surprise 4 point finisher) and a Hamilton rock star. Will this weekend proved even half as interesting? I say yes, as we’re going to see 3, yes 3, movies overperform in regards to how any of us would have picked them 3 months ago.
The big dog is Mission Impossible: Fallout. Taking a page from the Fast and Furious model – MI movies have been getting progressively better these past few years, and the BO is ticking up as well. The original came out in 1996(!!!) and made 180 million way back then. MI2 was silly but made 215 million. And then came the years where we all decided we hated Tom Cruise. Cause he jumped on a couch. And did some other weird stuff. In that time he actually made some really interesting movies – and handed the reins of MI over the JJ Abrams who kicked the franchise in fun new directions – even though it made the least of all the MI movies. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation were fun movies in a similar vein and brought Tommy about 200 million each. Leading us to Fallout. Cruise is now in his mid-50’s but he’s still in better shape and better looking than every single person reading this write-up. And, by all accounts, he has made a kick-ass movie. The plot probably isn’t all that different from other MI movies, and yet it’s also supposed to be quite intriguing. The action sequences are the best of the summer. And it’s going to make bank. I’m predicting a 70 million opening weekend and a crazy good multiplier leading to $220 million total. More than Ant-man 2, and more than any other MI movie (not adjusting for inflation of course.) That’ll be a bunch of Top 5 and PTA points as well, plus a good IMDB score since we hate Tom Cruise less now than we used to. Add this to all your slates. And draft it in the year long draft (kudos to you two: Chien and Shryke)
Also overperforming this weekend will be Teen Titans – a movie version of the cartoon show. These often don’t work very well, but the irreverent humor and excited fanbase for this underated show will make for a surprise Summer sleeper. DC does TV shows well, and they’ve done Cartoons very well. By bringing this combo to the big screen - there’s no Zach Snyder moodiness to weigh this one down, they’ve got their A-game firing on all cylinders. It’ll hit 15 million for the weekend, with a shot at the high teens depending on how many kids peel off to see their first MI movie. With a very different audience between this and Christopher Robin I expect decent legs that will hit 40 million total, again maybe a bit more depending on the opening. For what we priced it at – that’s a pretty decent ROI.
And finally we get one Indie movie trying to break into the best Summer Indie market in years: Puzzle. This will not be nearly as successful as Won’t you be Neighbor, Sorry to Bother You, Eighth Grade, and so on and so on and so on. But since all those movies are expanding this week, and since Puzzle is a wonderful quiet little movie, it’s going to sneak right into a few PTA points and a decent IMDB rating (seriously who downgrades movies like this?) Kelly Macdonald is amazing as a suburban wife who begins to put the pieces of her life into a new and more interesting puzzle as she discovers the exciting (no really) world of puzzle competitions. In a Summer with a lot of big Indie stories to tell, this could easily get overlooked. But it found the right weekend to shine. It won’t help you in the BO world, but if you picked it in Ultimate you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
And that’s it. Next week the usual August doldrums hit. I had high hopes for The Spy who Dumped Me but I think MI is going to steal its audience. And that talking Pooh bear is freaking me out. But something will be worth seeing. Right?
Top 5
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Teen Titans
Mamma Mia: Here we go Again
The Equalizer 2
Ant-man and The Wasp
PTA
MI: Fallout
Puzzle
Eighth Grade
McQueen
Teen Titans
The big dog is Mission Impossible: Fallout. Taking a page from the Fast and Furious model – MI movies have been getting progressively better these past few years, and the BO is ticking up as well. The original came out in 1996(!!!) and made 180 million way back then. MI2 was silly but made 215 million. And then came the years where we all decided we hated Tom Cruise. Cause he jumped on a couch. And did some other weird stuff. In that time he actually made some really interesting movies – and handed the reins of MI over the JJ Abrams who kicked the franchise in fun new directions – even though it made the least of all the MI movies. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation were fun movies in a similar vein and brought Tommy about 200 million each. Leading us to Fallout. Cruise is now in his mid-50’s but he’s still in better shape and better looking than every single person reading this write-up. And, by all accounts, he has made a kick-ass movie. The plot probably isn’t all that different from other MI movies, and yet it’s also supposed to be quite intriguing. The action sequences are the best of the summer. And it’s going to make bank. I’m predicting a 70 million opening weekend and a crazy good multiplier leading to $220 million total. More than Ant-man 2, and more than any other MI movie (not adjusting for inflation of course.) That’ll be a bunch of Top 5 and PTA points as well, plus a good IMDB score since we hate Tom Cruise less now than we used to. Add this to all your slates. And draft it in the year long draft (kudos to you two: Chien and Shryke)
Also overperforming this weekend will be Teen Titans – a movie version of the cartoon show. These often don’t work very well, but the irreverent humor and excited fanbase for this underated show will make for a surprise Summer sleeper. DC does TV shows well, and they’ve done Cartoons very well. By bringing this combo to the big screen - there’s no Zach Snyder moodiness to weigh this one down, they’ve got their A-game firing on all cylinders. It’ll hit 15 million for the weekend, with a shot at the high teens depending on how many kids peel off to see their first MI movie. With a very different audience between this and Christopher Robin I expect decent legs that will hit 40 million total, again maybe a bit more depending on the opening. For what we priced it at – that’s a pretty decent ROI.
And finally we get one Indie movie trying to break into the best Summer Indie market in years: Puzzle. This will not be nearly as successful as Won’t you be Neighbor, Sorry to Bother You, Eighth Grade, and so on and so on and so on. But since all those movies are expanding this week, and since Puzzle is a wonderful quiet little movie, it’s going to sneak right into a few PTA points and a decent IMDB rating (seriously who downgrades movies like this?) Kelly Macdonald is amazing as a suburban wife who begins to put the pieces of her life into a new and more interesting puzzle as she discovers the exciting (no really) world of puzzle competitions. In a Summer with a lot of big Indie stories to tell, this could easily get overlooked. But it found the right weekend to shine. It won’t help you in the BO world, but if you picked it in Ultimate you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
And that’s it. Next week the usual August doldrums hit. I had high hopes for The Spy who Dumped Me but I think MI is going to steal its audience. And that talking Pooh bear is freaking me out. But something will be worth seeing. Right?
Top 5
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Teen Titans
Mamma Mia: Here we go Again
The Equalizer 2
Ant-man and The Wasp
PTA
MI: Fallout
Puzzle
Eighth Grade
McQueen
Teen Titans