The box office is back, for better or worse.
For better: “F9” took $70 million for the four days, Thursday through Sunday. Universal has $363 million worldwide, they should be happy. Vin, The Rock, Michelle, Helen Mirren, and Charlize Theron are entertaining audiences around the world. Can you imagine people seeing Helen Mirren for the first time, possibly, and figuring she’s a cool white haired lady in a Vin Diesel movie? Life is weird, no?
But the box office disasters are piling faster and more furiously than the cars in a “FF” movie.
“The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” is dead, $25 million. Either fans of the first movie didn’t want a sequel or were unamused by this one. They just didn’t care. Even people in other countries were turned off, just $6 mil total. I doubt there will be a third installment.
“In the Heights,” as I noted yesterday, couldn’t even reach $25 million. They scratched it out to $24.1 million after three frustrating weeks. Only $5.9 mil international. What went wrong? So many things. The movie was vibrant, and could have crossed over if only it hadn’t been abandoned by all its creators when there was criticism. And that was after a 99 on Rotten Tomatoes. Again, don’t ever apologize for your movie.
And then there’s the Sparks documentary. Why was this in theaters? No one’s heard of Sparks, no one cares except director Edgar Wright, god bless him, he loved them. But why not on cable or streaming? No one ever bought a Sparks record, why would they spent 10 bucks to see a two and half hour movie? And they didn’t! Total box office $500,000. Rest in peace.
