The domestic haul this weekend wasn’t expected to be huge and it wasn’t. ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ opened last weekend with $41 million, but this weekend plummeted, earning just $21M, but that was still enough to take the top spot again.
Audiences snubbed the newbies. The Coen Brothers all-star bonanza (George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Ralph Fiennes, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jonah Hill) took the #2 slot with $11.4M, a little more than half what ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ made and the worst opening ever for a Coen Brothers wide release movie. While critics loved it, as they do everything the Coens make, audiences hated it, giving it a C- Cinemascore. Don’t expect word-of-mouth to help ‘Caesar’ out. On the upside, it only cost $20M to make.
Hold overs ‘The Revenant’ and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ landed in third and fourth place, making less than $10M each.
The final new entry in the Top Five, the Nicholas Sparks adaptation ‘The Choice’ is basically the Bizarro version of ‘Hail, Caesar’– zero stars, positive audience reaction but critics absolutely loathed it. It stands at a stinky 8% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not that critics matter much. The target audience for this film typically doesn’t pay attention to those. However, this marks a new low debut for a Sparks adaptation, most likely due to the whole “zero stars” thing.
Here is the breakdown:
- Kung Fu Panda 3 (20th Century Fox) $21 million
- Hail, Caesar! (Universal) $11.4 million
- The Revenant (20th Century Fox)$7.1 million
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney) $6.9 million
- The Choice (Lionsgate) $6.1 million
Notice anything missing? Yep, this week’s other new release, ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’, the long in-development adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s best selling satire flopped hard, taking in only $5.2M. This follows the 2012 failure of another historical satire by Grahame-Smith ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’. Hey Hollywood, maybe uhhh stop making movies out of his books.
In ‘Star Wars’ news, ‘The Force Awakens’ passed the $900M domestically and has already crossed the $2 billion mark internationally.
As for next week, I just have one word: ‘Deadpool‘.
BUT the Merc With A Mouth may get assassinated by Blue Steel, as ‘Zoolander 2’ is also opening, as is a third comedy ‘How To Be Single’. If you love comedy, you’ve certainly got your pick to choose from.
Check back next week to see how this laugh-off ends.
Source: IGN
