The two new movies actually being shown in theaters this weekend didn’t find a lot of love.
“Ammonite,” starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, took in just $85,000 at 280 screens. Audiences, like me, might have confused Ammonite for a stain remover or a substitute for Formica. Either way, there wasn’t much interest in waiting for these two fine actresses to have a sex scene, apparently. With $304 per screen, “Ammonite” looks like it’s headed the way of “Carol,” the last big serious lesbian drama. Remember how all the early reviews were sending “Carol” to the Oscars that year? And then it vanished. Here we go again.
Racist, anti-Semitic Mel Gibson’s hideously awful “Fatman” about a psychotic Santa hunted by a hit man did only a little better. It made $107K on 259 screens. Mel might as well have stayed in the chimney blowing smoke up his own you know what. Like all Mel Gibson movies, “Fatman” is headed to life on video on demand and in cut out DVD bins. By Christmas Eve, it should be a dimmed memory.
No, the big movie in theaters this weekend was the horror film, “Freaky,” from Universal Pictures and Jason Blum’s Blumhouse. Jason has found a way to make money during the pandemic, and I’m not surprised. This is 10th hit in a row in 2020. He paid his dues at Miramax/Dimension, and then went on to scare everyone silly. Vince Vaughn even got a “comeback” piece in the LA Times. How do you like that? Pigs have flown. “Freaky” made $3.7 million this weekend and finished at number 1.
Too bad Mel Gibson can’t get into Blumhouse. But my guess is, he burned that bridge a long time ago.
