DC League of Not-So-Super-Pets, Resurrection won’t get the chance to, and Other Box Office News.
Hang on, this can’t be right. According to the release schedule, we have already reached the end of Summer Movie Season? There’s Bullet Train next week and then… that’s it. Zilch, nada, bupkiss, diddly squat til, shit, late September at the earliest?! Where have all the movies gone, guys? Heck, in some respects, it feels like Summer Movie Season barely even started this year to begin with! And now it’s basically all wrapped up despite there being an entire month of Summer still to go? It’s bad enough that I normally have to stretch my arse off in the downer doldrums of early-to-mid September for interesting things to say in this weekly obligation, you want me to do that routine for double the usual length of time?! Think of the poor Box Office statisticians such as myself, movie industry! We’re the real victims, here!
READ MORE: Running Out of Time 1 and 2 – Blu-ray Review
The season’s official end may still be seven days away, but by golly we’re gonna limp there with at least one broken leg all the same. Only one proper new release this week, that being Warner Bros.’ animated diversion DC League of Super-Pets which, with every new glimpse I get at the thing, looks more and more like a slightly discounted Secret Life of Pets where Louis C.K. got replaced by The Rock. Theatrical animation’s not in a great place right now, to put it mildly, both quality-wise and financially as, despite cruising to #1 on account of no competition, Super-Pets came in well under-par with just $23 million for the weekend.
Admittedly, though, that rough start might not mean a whole lot since the next family-aimed/animated movie isn’t out til… *checks schedule* *keeps checking schedule* *is getting worryingly deep into the schedule* *is much closer to 2023 now than should be healthy* November 23rd when Disney puts out Strange World. So, yeah, inertia and a complete lack of viable alternatives may drag this one to a The Bad Guys-quality performance when all’s said and done. Stay tuned, cos there’s bugger else of note to follow during the drought period!
READ MORE: What Josiah Saw – Film Review
Elsewhere, we do have one Limited Release to discuss as domestic violence psychological thriller Resurrection got itself just under 100 screens so the Rebecca Hall army could turn out in force for the patron saint of underappreciated actresses doing stellar work in movies which only partly meet her level. Perhaps because of *gestures to everything going on in the world right now* influencing audience desires to see a thriller about a woman’s past abuse no matter how decent it may be, the thing failed to launch and took just $92,700 from 98 theatres (a PTA of $955).
Also failing to launch but coming with the caveat of it already being a runaway success and the studio’s biggest movie ever, A24 really desperately would like Everything Everywhere All at Once to break $70 million domestic and so put it back into almost 1,500 theatres this weekend in a special “Extended Cut.” Despite being available on home media for weeks. Oops. Still, that additional $650,000 turned out to be enough to push the film over $100 million worldwide which is hard to spin negatively no matter how hacks like I may try. Now that they finally have a $100 mil movie to their name, maybe A24 can RELEASE MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON OVERSEAS ALREADY?! YOU THOUGHT I FORGOT?! YOU THOUGHT WRONG, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!! ARE YOU ALLERGIC TO MY MONEY?!
It came home over the weekend, which is why you send women to do a man’s job. Here’s the Full List.
US Box Office Results: Friday 22nd July 2022 – Sunday 24th July 2022
1] DC League of Super-Pets
$23,000,000 / NEW
Wish I was being facetious with my comments about this in the pre-amble since I’ve really enjoyed Warner Animation Group’s output since resurrecting in 2014, and Teen Titans GO! To the Movies proved that you can get a tonne of mileage out of doing an animated kids’ comedy with DC properties. But, yeah, every new piece of footage or news I receive regarding this – from the diminishing returns of the Rock/Kevin Hart protagonist dynamic, to the weirdly lifeless choice of visual designs, to the brutally unfunny trailer, to one of the major selling points being that noted private jet abuser Taylor Swift is premiering her “Bad Blood” re-record here – just finds new bottoms of the barrel to bury my expectations in. We’ll find out together in two weeks, I guess.
2] NOPE
$18,549,575 / $80,583,000
LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA STILL NOT ACKNOWLEDGING ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS MOVIE UNTIL IT RELEASES IN TWO WEEKS LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA
$13,075,000 / $301,522,269
Did you adore that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer from SDCC? Guarantee you didn’t as much as Kelechi Ehenulo did, and she’s got the excellent words – about its symbol of Black mourning and collective grieving over the forthright addressing of Chadwick Boseman’s pre-production passing – to back it up. Seriously, go read her piece; it’s stellar.
4] Minions: The Rise of Gru
$10,880,375 / $320,411,000
I don’t have much nuance to add to the story that Steve Carrell took home $12.5 million for his voice work on Rise of Gru, which is almost one-seventh of the movie’s $80 million budget and has understandably been rankling the animators who don’t make anywhere near that much for significantly more work. Celebrity voice actors shouldn’t command such giant cheques, pay your goddamned animators what they’re worth.
$8,200,300 / $650,104,000
10 weeks on the chart and, with a combination of continued strong holds (just 20% drop this weekend) and sod-all coming out for a long while, has a not-insignificant shot at the unfathomable 20. Wild.
6] Where the Crawdads Sing
$7,524,799 / $53,526,000
If you’re interested in adult dramas which aren’t shit, may Dave Bond interest you in mob chamber piece The Outfit, hitting DVD and Blu-ray right now?
7] Elvis
$5,830,000 / $129,000,707
Never mind that shit! Somebody leaked a complete animatic of Genndy Tartakovsky’s cancelled Popeye movie online last week! It was taken down pretty much immediately, because Sony Pictures refuses to let anyone have nice things ever, but this is a holy grail for me as an animation fan still stewing over this project getting unceremoniously shit-canned in 2015… and yet NONE OF YOU TOLD ME BEFORE IT GOT TAKEN DOWN! I don’t know if our relationship can recover from this betrayal, folks.
8] The Black Phone
$2,499,755 / $83,119,000
On the subject of spirit-based spook-ems, Joel Schumacher’s cult classic horror Flatliners has gotten a spanking new 4K restoration courtesy of those B-movie maestros Arrow Video. Amy Walker’s got the lowdown on whether it’s worth your pennies.
9] Jurassic World Dominion
$2,080,155 / $369,493,000
This is gonna finish closer to $1 billion worldwide than it has any right to. Everybody go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. Demand better from your dinosaur entertainment! Like, for example, a plot that focuses primarily on dinosaurs.
10] Vengeance
$1,750,000 / NEW
In case you’re wondering, this is a dark comedy that’s also the feature film writer/director debut of B. J. Novack. You may better know him as Ryan from The Office whilst I know him as the guy who I keep accidentally confusing with P. J. Byrne, despite the fact that the two do not look alike and have never appeared in the same project together. What else will my time in the Legend of Korra trenches, where Byrne voiced Bolin, cause my brain to nonsensically confuse?
Dropped out: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank