Tranny Tackles the Cinema: The Films of 6/14

[transformers2]

Summertime box office sadness has claimed two more victims.

Despite claiming the top 2 spots, both of last weekend's openers stumbled out of the gate. #2 finisher Dark Phoenix's ($32.9 mil OW, lowest of the X-Men franchise by over $20 mil) failure wasn't a shock at all as the movie had been receiving bad buzz for nearly a year and was part of a brand that had already been trending downwards. Top opener The Secret Life of Pets 2 ($46.6 mil), on the other hand, is easily among the most inexplicable failures in recent memory. Its predecessor made a fantastic $368 mil in 2016 (#4 highest of the year, outgrossing titles like Moana, Fantastic Beasts and Doctor Strange by over $100 mil), Illumination is easily the most popular non-Disney animated production company right now and this franchise is far too young for “fatigue” to set in. Even if its legs prove to be great (which is unlikely considering that Disney's latest behemoth Toy Story 4 is hitting theaters next weekend), it's not even going to make half of what the original did. If nothing else, Pets' underwhelming performance provides yet another great piece of evidence as to why human behavior is an uncrackable code and no pre-release metrics can account for our species' comically irrational nature.

Things were quite a bit sunnier on the limited market. Sundance favorite Late Night gave Amazon Studios one of their best PTA hauls to-date with an impressive $62,414 average in 4 theaters while the universally-acclaimed indie drama The Last Black Man in San Francisco managed nearly $33,000 PTA in 7 theaters. Even, Neon's male stripper doc This One's for the Ladies brought in a respectable $13,688 in just 1 theater. Late Night is seemingly bound to join the sad cinema gang when it expands into 1,800+ theaters this weekend, but The Last Black Man in San Francisco and This One's for the Ladies could continue to cleanup in limited release if they stick to a modest expansion plan.


Wide Releases:
7 years ago, Agent K and J hung up their shades and neuralyzers with the surprisingly emotional conclusion to the Men in Black trilogy. While Agent K and J are still retired from the alien policing game for now, the Men in Black are back in action with the spin-off Men in Black: International (Sony).

In terms of promotion, Sony has done everything right. They released the first trailer back in December, clearly emphasized that there's a new setting/team and even had Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson appear in a series of amusing ads that have aired throughout the NBA Finals where they investigate whether or not several of the league's most prolific players (Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul) are actually aliens. Now for the important question: Do people care that the Men in Black are back? I'm inclined to say no since MiB III wasn't exactly a sensation domestically ($179 mil), but bringing in a pair of actors from another hit franchise who have an established on-screen rapport and a director in F. Gary Gray who has of a good blockbuster track record as anyone in the industry right now could be enough to make this is a surprise hit. Best case scenario: It performs like Bumblebee or Ready Player One. Worst case scenario: It performs like Tomb Raider or Pacific Rim Uprising. Review embargo gets lifted tomorrow morning, so we'll get to see the potential impact critics will have on this legit wild card before too long.

Prediction: $25-42 mil OW/7-12 Top 5/0-2 PTA/low to mid 6 IMDb/$65-120 mil overall BO
Price (JUN-AUG): $22 ULT/$22 BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: There's an outside chance this will break the recent blockbuster funk, but putting in on your slate is an unnecessary risk.


If you thought a Men in Black comeback was unexpected, the return of Shaft (Warner Brothers) probably made your motherfucking heart stop. Nearly 20 years after the late John Singleton brought the iconic ass-kicker back to the screen, Tim Story is helming what is essentially the blaxploitation version of The Avengers with both previous Shafts (Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Roundtree) and a third generation of Shaft (Jessie T. Usher)-who may or may not turn into a foul-mouthed, womanizing private investigator like the rest of his kin by the end of the movie- teaming up in Harlem to solve the mysterious murder of Shaft Jr's friend.

Counterprogramming has fared almost as poorly as the blockbusters so far this summer and I don't think Shaft will be the title to break that cycle. Shaft is a niche property that not too many people under the age of 30 are aware of and the “you god damn soft millennials are ruining the world”-type humor that every single promo has featured could turn off some audiences. It'll likely do a lot better than the Superfly remake-which ironically came out on the same weekend last year- because of Jackson's involvement, but a take any higher than $50-55 mil seems highly unlikely.
Prediction: $12-20 mil OW/2-5 Top 5/0-1 PTA/high 5 to low 6 IMDb/$33-55 mil overall BO
Price (MAY-JUL): $15 ULT/$14 BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Hell Motherfucking No


Here's a sentence I never expected to write: Jim Jarmusch made a zombie movie. Naturally, the indie auteur primarily known for his human dramas managed to assemble one hell of an ensemble cast for his most accessible feature to-date. The Dead Don't Die (Focus) stars the likes of Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Selena Gomez and Danny Glover as members of a small town community that is suddenly overrun by hordes of the undead.

As expected, Jarmusch quirky splatterfest isn't being as warmly received as most of his other projects. It received tepid reviews following its premiere at Cannes last month and things haven't gotten any better with subsequent critical screenings (it currently sits at 52% on RT and 56 on Metacritic). That indifference should carry over to its theatrical run. The combination of numerous notable names in the cast and less arthouse appeal than usual has resulted in Focus giving The Dead Don't Die a semi-wide release (projected to be between 500 and 800 theaters) right away, which essentially makes it useless in either format. People enjoy the undead, but a Jarmusch zombie flick is just to going to be too weird to appeal to the masses and too trashy to appeal to his usual audience.
Prediction: $2-5 mil OW/0 Top 5/0-2 PTA/low to mid 6 IMDb/$4-12 mil overall BO
Price (MAY-JUL): $4 ULT/$4 BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: It falls in the dreaded “too wide to get PTA, but not wide enough to get top 5” category, so that would be a negative.


Limited Release:
With Late Night's aforementioned expansion, American Woman (Roadside/Vertical) poses the only real threat to The Last Black Man in San Francisco on the specialty market. This drama that premiered at Toronto last fall centers around a woman (Sienna Miller) whose teenage daughter disappears, leaving her to raise her newborn granddaughter by herself. Despite having a path to success that seems uncontested, I don't expect American Woman to be a PTA force. Reviews have been merely decent thus far and Vertical's involvement indicates that it could end up on VOD before too long. Boasting a premise that is so inherently depressing surely doesn't help matters either. A few PTA points should be in the cards this weekend barring some VOD fuckery, but its prospects after that are pretty shaky.
Prediction: $35k OW/0 Top 5/2-6 PTA/mid to high 6 IMDb/$55-$90k overall BO
Price (MAY-JUL): $4 ULT/$1 BO
Worth Putting on Your Slate?: Definitely not a must have, but it has some upside.


Weekend Projections:
1.Men in Black: International $33 mil
2.The Secret Life of Pets 2 $30 mil
3.Shaft $16 mil
4.Aladdin $15 mil
5.Dark Phoenix $11 mil
-Late Night (wide expansion) $4.5 mil
-The Dead Don't Die $3 mil

PTA: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Men in Black: International, American Woman, This One's for the Ladies, Shaft

Tune in next week when our buddy six analyzes films about a group of beloved toys embarking on a utensil rescue mission, killer dolls that sound like Luke Skywalker, Russian models that are secretly assassins and aspiring Irish country singers.

[Buscemi2]

Well, Men in Black's not too good according to early word. Sony should have listened to Jonah Hill's pitch.

[Spectre]

I could tell MiB wasn't any good from the trailer. Trying way too hard to capture what came naturally before. No Will Smith is pretty much a dagger for this franchise.

More bombs incoming this weekend. I feel like MiB goes under $25M and Shaft lands around $10M. The Mouse continues to consume all his enemies.

[undeadmonkey]

agreed, they were trying to sell the movie on the two leads, but i know absolutely nothing of what the movie is about or any reason to see it.

[Buscemi2]

Now that I think of it, you're right. The trailer tells us of a threat but all I see are Thor talking about Taco Tuesday and a hubcap doubling as ammunition for a futuristic gatling gun (that shot makes me wish this was an R rated film). Oh, and the guy from The Big Sick voicing a tiny alien (whom I thought was David Cross for some reason).

And I actually had to read a review to find out that was Rebecca Ferguson as the alien with the multiple arms. At least a European actress not named Emily Blunt is getting steady work in Hollywood.

[transformers2]

The newer trailer explains that they're fighting a shape-shifting alien race that has infiltrated MiB internally

[undeadmonkey]

Ahh, so are we to assume that Tessa Thompson plays one of these aliens, but she doesnt know that she is one?

[transformers2]

Perhaps. I'll report back after I see it this or next weekend

[Buscemi2]

Maybe she's like a Marvel superhero: got too close to radiation and voila, superpowers.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Liam Neeson's character is definitely one of the bad guys, judging from the trailer.

I too would much rather have gotten the 21 Jump St/MIB crossover movie than this blandness.

[Buscemi2]

Bombs away!

Early estimates:

Men in Black $10 million Friday/$25 million weekend (by comparison, the original made $14 million on opening day...22 years ago...on a Wednesday, also the original did a lot better in previews)
Shaft $3.3 million Friday/$8.5 million weekend (by comparison, Shaft 2000 opened to $22 million)
Late Night $1.7 million Friday/$4.5 million weekend
The Dead Don't Die $730,000 Friday/$2 million weekend

[Walleye413]

My goodness, what a crapfest!

America is going to see only 5 movies this year. And if you didn't pick one of them in the draft - say goodbye to your slate! Wow this sucks.

[Buscemi2]

I think the studios need to rethink a lot of how they spend money. Warner Bros. didn't really see fit to promote Shaft very well as they sold the international rights to Netflix (also, I think giving away the last 15 minutes in marketing and reworking the film to be funny hurt) but it will break even a lot easier as a result. But on the other hand, it seems like Sony made the mistake to spend untold millions on a Men in Black without Will Smith. Smith and the characters of Agent J and Agent K were the franchise. "No Will, no sale" seems to be the general audience reaction.

Using a baseball analogy I saw earlier, the distributors need to stop trying to hit home runs every time. The three true outcomes get boring quickly. Get some singles, doubles, triples, steal some bases. Keep the line moving. It's how some of these smaller companies like A24 and Blumhouse have been thriving.

[numbersix]

The lesson is for studios to stop relying on IP that audiences are tired of. There's a culture of terror in Hollywood right now where original ideas are the boogeyman and franchises are the saviours. That may be true in some instances (like the MCU-ified Spiderman) but for the most part it will bore audiences. MIB3 struggled and there was no way Tessa Thompson and Thor could compensate for a franchise entirely reliant on Will Smith. MIB should never have been rebooted. Let it die, and move on.

[Shrykespeare]

Theater counts:

Men in Black International - 4,224
Shaft - 2,952
The Dead Don't Die - 613
American Woman - 117

Late Night - expands to 2,220



Next week:

Toy Story 4 - 4,400
Child's Play - 2,500+
Anna - 2,150
Wild Rose - wide



Celebrity birthdays:

Hugh Laurie turned 60 on 6/11
Peter Dinklage turned 50 on 6/11
Katelyn Nacon turned 20 on 6/11
Lucy Hale turned 30 on 6/14
Ice Cube turned 50 on 6/15