Antoine Fuqua’s star-studded remake of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ won the weekend, with Fuqua’s highest opening to date and star Denzel Washington’s third best, not to mention the second best opening ever for a western (falling behind ‘Cowboys & Aliens‘ of all things).
Sony’s worldwide marketing and distribution chief Josh Greenstein declared:
“Sony is on a very hot run of profitable movies between The Angry Birds Movie, The Shallows, Sausage Party, Don’t Breathe and now Magnificent Seven is another great win for us. Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt are an incredible winning combination, and we’re in business with them moving forward in the future with Chris on Passengers and Denzel on Inner City. Antoine did a great job, putting his signature stamp on this film and making it the biggest opening of his career.”
Unfortunately, the reviews haven’t been kind, so it remains to be seen if this flick has legs. But with a $35M opening, it’s well on its way to recouping its $90M production budget. Then again, it should breeze past western flop ‘The Lone Ranger’ which had a budget of $215M… for reasons unknown.
Unfortunately, $35M isn’t a huge windfall and the Top Ten combined couldn’t even muster $100M. I guess “fall” isn’t just a reference to leaves turning red.
‘The Magnificent Seven’ fended off Warner Brothers’ animated ‘Storks’ which took in $21.8M. Too bad it cost $70M to produce. It doesn’t look like this will be turning into a franchise.
Here is the Top Five:
- The Magnificent Seven (Sony) – $35M
- Storks (Warner Brothers) – $21.8M
- Sully (Warner Brothers) – $13.8M
- Bridget Jones’s Baby (Universal) – $4.5
- Snowden (Open Road) – $4.1M
This time of year is rocky for movies period, so it’s unclear how next week’s new releases, which include Tim Burton’s ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children’, ‘Deepwater Horizon’ and comedy ‘Masterminds’ will do. Could they possibly best ‘Magnificent Seven’ and the other holdovers?
Source: Deadline
