America hits Kung Fu Panda one more time, Imaginary’s takings are anything but, lesbians love Lies Bleeding, and Other Box Office News.
It’s been just over eight years since the last Kung Fu Panda movie. That’s two entire US Presidents ago! And, honestly, the series didn’t look in fighting shape. Despite functioning as the first Name movie of 2016, releasing at the end of a dismal January slate, and with zero overlapping competition for an entire month, Kung Fu Panda 3 posted the worst results of the series’ history; an opening of $41 million ($19 mil below the original), a North American total of $143.5 mil ($72 mil below the original), and a worldwide total of $521.1 mil ($144.5 mil below the second movie).
But absence, and perhaps more specifically the absence of any weekly Nickelodeon spin-off TV shows that could devalue the brand’s value theatrically, makes the heart grow fonder. Your new Box Office #1, quite handily I may add, is Kung Fu Panda 4, making a glorious high-kicking return to the top spot with an overperforming $58.3 million, just a squeak under the original’s $60.2 mil from 2008. Maybe the strategy of waiting eight years for the then-grown-up fans of the original trilogy to spawn offspring who’d want to see a new instalment after a childhood raised on those DVDs is a valid one! Pop culture will keep eating itself until morale improves!
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Snark aside, there’s a lot to feel good about this weekend if you’re invested in the health of cinemas and not too particular on what exactly is responsible for bringing in those dollars. It’s been, ooh, about 45 minutes since the last low-quality Kodak-disposable Blumhouse horror occupied cinema space and, hey, right on cue it’s another one of those! Imaginary, the first of two imaginary friend movies releasing in the next three months, working from the sort of logline – “what if Ted wasn’t a total fucking pussy and handled shit?” – that gets hacks like Jeff “Truth or Dare” Wadlow $12 million budgets without even trying. Surprising nobody, this is the most third-place film to come along in a while, taking home $10 million and a “C+” Cinemascore in the no man’s land between Dune: Part Two and the rest of the chart.
Below that, the creative brain-trust which brought you last year’s Culture War smash hit Sound of Freedom – director Alejandro Gómez Monteverde and distributor Angel Studios – have reteamed in hopes that lightning will strike twice for Cabrini, a biopic about the titular Catholic missionary which I am certain won’t have any questionable undertones bubbling beneath its old-fashioned biopic surface. So far, the money fountain ain’t spurting like it used to, taking just $7.5 mil compared to Freedom’s $14.2 million start, but I have learned not to write off Angel Studios releases so we’ll have to wait and see if Cabrini ascends to a higher plane of (financial) existence.
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Meanwhile, we have our first noteworthy Limited Releases of 2024! Skirting the very edge of the term “Limited” – probably more accurate to call it “Moderate” since it’s playing in 200 screens – is YOLO, a Chinese remake of the really good Japanese boxing drama 100 Yen Love and no I don’t know why they named it YOLO in the year 2024 either. Over the Lunar New Year last month, director-star Jia Ling’s latest demolished Chinese Box Office records (just like her last film did) and perhaps that hype has translated into curiosity overseas as the film crept into the Top 10, going the distance to ninth place with $840,000; a PTA of $4,200 that’s better than both films discussed in the previous paragraph.
But the big one is Love Lies Bleeding, Rose “Saint by God Maud” Glass’ lesbian bodybuilder crime thriller which has all your queer friends in constant states of hot flush at the mere mention of its existence. It’s going Wide next week, but A24 figured they’re contractually obligated to soft-launch in the usual 5 arthouse theatres beforehand so what’s an early $167,463 (a PTA of $33,492) between friends, eh?
No, seriously, please check in on your queer friends with this. We are not well.
Behold! A Full List penned by the mighty Dragon Warrior themselves!
US Box Office Results: Friday 8th March 2024 – Sunday 10th March 2024
1] Kung Fu Panda 4
$58,300,000 / NEW
Releasing in the UK over Easter weekend. I’m of the belief that Kung Fu Panda 2 is the best thing that DreamWorks Animation have ever put out and one of the best films of the previous decade, but that third movie was such a disappointing nothing. Really hope this one is better, especially since we’re now in DreamWorks’ more stylised designs era and I’m dying to see Panda 2 tableaus with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish flourish.
2] Dune: Part Two
$46,000,000 / $157,027,668
44% drop, significantly better than any of us were expecting. Ladies, gents, enbys… it’s a hit. PREP THE MACHINERY FOR MESSIAH!
3] Imaginary
$10,000,000 / NEW
I am genuinely shocked that Blumhouse hadn’t already made an outright “imaginary friend is actually a malevolent demon” movie. Like, if your horror-focused production company is doing endless low-budget schlock, that’s gotta be one of the first concepts you work on, right? Or, hell, you skip it outright for being so obvious! It feels bizarre to me to reach 24 years in the business and decide now is the time to do this one.
4] Cabrini
$7,565,038 / NEW
Unlike Sound of Freedom, this does have real positive reviews from reputable critics, so maybe my earlier snark will curdle like weeks-old milk. Who can say.
5] Bob Marley: One Love
$4,060,000 / $89,327,503
For real this time, I’ll have finally watched One Love between filing these words and them going live. Look, it’s not like things have been whizz-bang wild at the cinema of late; I had plenty of time to get around to the boilerplate music biopic.
6] Ordinary Angels
$2,030,000 / $16,143,032
It’s been away for a while due to the New Year turnaround, but Amy Walker’s Comic Cave is back in action! And for her grand return, she’s shining a spotlight on the horror miniseries The Nice House on the Lake! Personally feel like she should’ve saved that for the Halloween season, but I guess any season can be Halloween season if you try hard enough.
7] Madame Web
$1,125,000 / $42,619,699
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the reverse-psychology “we made SUCH A PIECE OF CRAP, YOU GUYS” marketing approach on Madame Web didn’t work out and is rumoured to herald a mountain of blowback for star Dakota Johnson. Pussies. I remember the glorious days where Ben Affleck actively shat all over Armageddon on its official director’s commentary! We used to be a real industry!
8] Migration
$1,100,000 / $125,331,060
99% certain that the middle stretch of this movie is set in New York purely because Illumination already have one megahit franchise based in the city (The Secret Life of Pets) and figured they could save on the budget by reusing the relevant assets.
9] YOLO
$840,000 / NEW
You should watch 100 Yen Love, if you haven’t. It’s very good.
10] Wonka
$600,000 / $217,790,096
Karen Gillan wants to play Poison Ivy in James Gunn’s (already headache-inducing) rebooted DC Universe and, specifically, do HarlIvy in live-action. That sound you heard is every single nerdy queer collectively collapsing to their knees at the prospect of this thing which’ll probably never happen. Margot Robbie, if ever there was a time to cash in that $1.4 billion worth of cred from Barbie, this is it.
Dropped out: The Chosen: S4 Episodes 7 & 8, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To the Hashira Training, Argylle, The Beekeeper