20th Century Fox had higher hopes for ‘The Predator’, the sixth movie in the franchise. It was hoped that this would be a fresh start for a new franchise, but it came in lower than 2010’s ‘Predators’ (directed by Robert Rodriguez), which Fox had also positioned as a fresh reboot which was ALSO hoped to kickstart another batch of movies. ‘The Predator”s opening weekend box office gross was $24 million, shy of ‘Predators” $24.7M. Judging by audience polls, ‘The Predator’ pretty much only drew diehards, with males over 25 comprising 45% of crowds. Plus, it doesn’t help that it doesn’t appear to be any good. Audiences only ranked it at a C+ through CinemaScore and its Rotten Tomatoes rating is 64%.
Of course, Hurricane Florence made a pretty big dent in the overall US box office and ‘The Predator’ got slammed with a sex offender controversy in the days leading up to its release, so that may have also scared off some. But honestly, this just looks like the case of another dusty old franchise that younger people don’t care about and Hollywood needs to stop trying to revive. (Take note, ‘Terminator’, ‘Alien’, and ‘RoboCop’.)
Even so, ‘The Predator’ performed well enough to take the #1 spot at the US box office, but globally, last week’s champ ‘The Nun’ reigned supreme. Domestically, ‘The Nun’ took in an additional $18.2M. This film also got a fairly weak reception from audiences and critics, but this weekend carried ‘The Conjuring’ franchise as a whole past the $200M mark globally.
The Paul Feig-directed comedy/noir flick ‘A Simple Favor’ fronted by Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick over-performed, earning $16M. This one is a bit of a mixed bag, as Feig is best known for broad comedies like the ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot and several Melissa McCarthy movies. This film is light on laughs, emphasizing the darker noir elements. It only earned an 82% Rotten Tomatoes average, but audiences liked it, giving it a B+ CinemaScore.
While ‘The Predator’ is a disappointment for Fox, there is real dismay in Hollywood over the weak opening of ‘White Boy Ricky’, a movie that most had pegged as a real Oscar contender. This reality-based film got raves during its film festival run, but its Rotten Tomato score is lousy– 64%. So I’m not sure where this award buzz came from. It earned a terrible $8.8M and will soon be forgotten.
Here is the Top Five:
- The Predator (20th Century Fox) – $24M
- The Nun (New Line/Warner Brothers) – $18.2M
- A Simple Favor (Lionsgate) – $16M
- White Boy Rick (SX/Sony) – $8.8M
- Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Brothers) – $8.7M
Next week sees the release of the family Halloween movie ‘The House with a Clock in its Walls’, starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett. Documentaries have been doing extremely well this year and next week, one of the most successful documentarians, Michael Moore, has his latest politically-skewing picture, ‘Fahrenheit 11/9’ opening.
Check back to see how things pan out!
Source: Deadline
