This weekend sees the release of MeganLeavey, a tale of a real life wondrous woman. It stars Kate Mara in the title role of a US Marine corporal and her combat dog Rex. The Bleecker Street production costars Edie Falco, Common, Tom Felton, and Bradley Whitford.
It’s not easy to bet against a picture with military themes that could also appeal to dog lovers, but Leavey seems to be flying under the radar. Female audiences could also still be distracted by the sophomore frame of WonderWoman. I’ve yet to see a theater count at press time and that could alter my estimate. For now, I’ll say it falls below $4 million for a muted debut.
MeganLeavey opening weekend prediction: $3.3 million
So what’s a superhero movie gotta do to get a Best Picture nomination? That question has yet to be answered. 2008’s The Dark Knight was a gloriously reviewed box office juggernaut that still failed to get attention from the Academy (save for Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Supporting Actor win). Last year’s Deadpool was a game changer in the genre that started to gain momentum towards the end of award season (including for star Ryan Reynolds). Again – no Oscar love materialized.
This weekend, Wonder Woman took in a fantastic $100 million in its opening weekend. It also garnered some of the best reviews the comic book genre has seen – 93% currently on Rotten Tomatoes. It set the box office record for a picture directed by a female (Patty Jenkins). And Gal Gadot’s portrayal of the title character is drawing many raves.
Could the Academy notice? My gut feeling – doubtful. I wouldn’t be surprised to see lots of chatter in the coming months about its possibility to be the first superhero flick to nab a Best Picture nomination. Yet I feel in 2018 that we’ll still be speculating about what could be the first.
The small sub genre of female driven superhero movies has unfortunately been a bit of a cinematic litter box with forgettable fare like Supergirl, Catwoman, and Elektra. That changes with WonderWoman from director Patty Jenkins. It is not only by far the most satisfying comic book adaptation headlined by a woman, it’s the most entertaining DC pic since Christopher Nolan was handling the Batman franchise.
We first saw Gal Gadot’s title character in last year’s BatmanvSuperman: DawnofJustice as a sidekick to those two iconic titans. While it deservedly earned its reputation as a mess, it was also a mess worth watching and Wonder Woman was a bright spot in it. Now we get her origin story. We begin in present day with Diana Prince collaborating with Bruce Wayne. The Caped Crusader’s research has uncovered a photograph of the ageless Wonder from the World War I era (which we first saw in BvS). This causes Diana’s memory to travel way, way back.
Before the events chronicled in that picture come into play, we get Diana as a young girl on the lush and secluded island of Themyscira. It is a land of only women, including her Amazon queen mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and her warrior aunt Antiope (Robin Wright). As a child, she’s told grand stories of the Gods and how Ares the god of war killed Zeus and it all led to this private island paradise. Mother mostly wants this quality of life preserved while Auntie Antiope insists on training Diana into a warrior princess. And it seems even pre teen Diana has a knack for kicking butt.
The dynamic of life on Themyscira is altered when hunky WWI spy Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and his plane crash lands there. Diana rescues him and get her first exposure to the male species. She’s also exposed to the news that a massive war is taking place outside her small world and she feels it’s her duty to help. So off she goes with Captain Trevor with the idea that she’ll rid the Earth of Ares, whom she believes is the real culprit behind all the chaos.
Our scenery changes from the bright and shimmering island to gray and drab London where Diana is a major fish out of water. There are scenes of her adjusting to her new surroundings (including having to try on the restrictive clothing of the era) that are quite humorous. The duo soon assemble a rag tag team with tacit approval from a commander played by David Thewlis. Their mission is to stop a German general (Danny Huston) and a deformed scientist (Elena Anaya, who is memorable here) who’s developed a dastardly gas concoction.
While all this intrigue is occurring, Diana and Steve are becoming closer and Gadot and Pine have a romantic and often funny chemistry. Their interactions lead to some charming moments, but also ones that lead to dramatic heft later. Unlike recent DC titles like BvS and ManofSteel, WonderWoman isn’t afraid to have a degree of silliness that is welcome. After all, our heroine’s “lasso of truth” is present here and it’s difficult to take it very seriously. What’s easy to admire is Gadot’s work in selling her character’s reaction to her new reality off the island. Wonder Woman believes that simply stopping the God she’s heard about for all her life will make everything right. It’s fascinating to watch her realization that the world is a bit more complicated.
The grand action sequences here aren’t much different in style or quality than what we’ve witnessed before in countless other superhero tales. WonderWoman doesn’t break the mold from the many origin stories that come from comic book pages. Some of the plot points are familiar – we know there will be an additional villain reveal in the third act and there is.
However, WonderWoman succeeds because it takes time to develop her story. It gives her a partner and romantic interest that we like and care about. The screenplay isn’t solely consumed with loud and fiery battle set pieces. The writers remember that character exploration and humor are assets as well. And, yes, for the first time witness a superhero with “wo” added to the “man” that hits the mark.
A24 Studios will try and scare up some business next weekend with the release of psychological horror thriller It Comes at Night. From director Trey Edward Shults, it stars Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, and Christopher Abbott. Originally scheduled to open in August, it was pushed up after receiving some critical acclaim on the film festival circuit (it’s at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes right now).
Horror flicks are notoriously tough to predict and it’s a genre where reviews don’t matter much. We have seen lauded titles such as You’re Next fail to break through with mainstream audiences and that could hold true here. On the other hand, Get Out from just this year is one of the best reviewed genre titles in recent memory and it made a killing. That said, Get Out seemed to have a lot more buzz going for it.
There’s also the matter of The Mummy opening against it and it could compete for some of the same crowd. I’ll predict It Comes at Night opens just under double digits as it hopes to build upon solid word of mouth or achieve cult status afterwards.
It Comes at Night opening weekend prediction: $9.5 million
Bloggers Note (06/08/17) – poor reviews and word of mouth have caused a revision from $38.7M to $34.7M
Universal Pictures is hoping that next weekend’s The Mummy both successfully reboots their Brendan Fraser led franchise that began in 1999 and starts off their “Dark Universe” series to pleasing results. The action/horror flick features Tom Cruise in the lead role with Annabelle Wallis, Sofia Boutella, Courtney B. Vance, and Russell Crowe in the supporting cast. Alex Kurtzman directs the reported $125 million production.
The aforementioned Dark Universe franchise is slated to bring us new additions of the Invisible Man, Frankenstein, Van Helsing, and Wolf Man sagas over the next few years. Our previous Mummy series gave us the original 18 years ago, which opened to $43 million and ended up earning $155M domestically. 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns was the high mark with a $68 million premiere and $202M overall haul. 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon was a low mark with a $40 million debut and $102M total.
This brings us to Mr. Cruise. He’s not the box office draw he once was and it’s worth noting that only the Mission: Impossible franchise and 2005’s War of the Worlds have made over $40 million out of the gate. That is probably the number The Mummy is poised to reach and that probably means a second place showing after the sophomore weekend of Wonder Woman. I’ll put it right under that mark.
The Mummy opening weekend prediction: $34.7 million
Sofia Coppola burst onto the film scene with two highly regarded directorial efforts – 1999’s TheVirginSuicides and 2003’s LostinTranslation. The latter scored multiple Oscar nods, including Picture. Since then, Coppola has been off the awards radar screen for the most part (2006’s MarieAntoinette did win Best Costume Design).
Yet Coppola’s name came up over the weekend as her latest, TheBeguiled, won her the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The period piece drama/thriller is actually based on a novel that served as source material for a 1971 Clint Eastwood flick. Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning headline.
TheBeguiled hits stateside screens on June 23rd and reaction from the French fest was positive. It stands at a decent 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. If it manages to over perform at the box office, perhaps there could some chatter for Coppola getting Academy attention, though it’s doubtful. One wild card could perhaps be Kidman, who seems to garnering some raves for her performance. And who knows? Perhaps a Costume Desjgn nod.
Taylor Sheridan has been quite the hot screenwriter as of late with 2015’s Sicario and last year’s HellorHighWater, for which he received an Oscar nomination in Original Screenplay. His latest is WindRiver, a thriller involving a murder case at an Indian reservation. It also marks his directorial debut and its buzz from both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals could receive awards attention.
Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, and Jon Bernthal headline River, which rolls in stateside in August. Reviews have been solid thus far and it stands at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. I would say it stands a fair, but not overwhelming shot at being this year’s Hell or High Water – which scored four Academy nods including Best Picture.
WindRiver very likely won’t reach that number, but the possibility exists for a second straight Original Screenplay recognition for Mr. Sheridan.
After a rather disappointing Memorial Day weekend at the box office (more on that below), June rolls in with two major releases: Wonder Woman, the latest in the DC Cinematic Universe and Dreamworks animated feature Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on each of them here:
There’s little question that Wonder Woman will open at #1, but there’s wide variations on how much it will gross out of the gate. The pic has been garnering glowing reviews and that should help (its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently 96%). I currently have it in the low to mid 90s with the thought that the number could be trending up.
A potential battle may emerge for the runner-up position between Underpants and the second weekend of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. However, my estimate puts the non-Sparrow Captain just aheadat #2, as I believe Pirates will suffer a hefty decline.
Holdovers Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baywatch (which should tumble pretty far after a bad debut) should round out the top five. And with that, my top 5 estimates for the weekend:
1. Wonder Woman
Predicted Gross: $98.3 million
2. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
Predicted Gross: $27.4 million
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Predicted Gross: $21.6 million (representing a drop of 61%)
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Predicted Gross: $10 million (representing a drop of 50%)
5. Baywatch
Predicted Gross: $7.5 million (representing a drop of 59%)
Box Office Results (May 26-29)
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales easily topped the four-day holiday weekend. However, it did so with the lowest debut of any of the five films since the original in 2003. The Johnny Depp pic grossed $78.4 million over the long frame, right in line with my $78.6M estimate. It is highly likely this will turn out to be the lowest domestic grosser of the franchise thus far.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was second with $27.1 million (I was a touch lower at $25.3M) to bring its total to $340M.
Baywatch, with wretched reviews and so-so word of mouth, performed a box office belly flop with $27.7 million from its Thursday to Monday roll out, under my projection of $39.4M. That put in in third for Friday to Monday portion of the weekend.
News was bad for Alien: Covenant as well. In its sophomore frame, it tumbled to $13.3 million for fourth (well under my $19.9M forecast).
Everything, Everything rounded out the top five with $7.6 million (I said $6.8M) for a two week tally of $23M.
As the Cannes Film Festival culminated today with its awards ceremony, we may have a legitimate Best Actor contender and then some with YouWereNeverReallyHere. The film, written and directed by Lynne Ramsey (in her first work since 2011’s acclaimed WeNeedtoTalkAboutKevin , casts Joaquin Phoenix as a war vet trying to save a girl from a sex trafficking ring. Early reviews indicate it’s tough stuff, but well worth it and it sits at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Mr. Phoenix won the Actor prize for his work and it immediately vaults him into contention for his fourth acting nomination. The same could end up holding true for Ramsey, both for her direction and adapted screenplay from the Jonathan Ames novel it’s based upon. Best Picture is also not out of the question.
It remains to be seen whether Amazon Studios can garner the attention for this in the way it managed to for last year’s ManchesterbytheSea, but they’ll surely try.
The Cannes Film Festival showcased a rather unexpected potential player in the awards derby with the crime drama GoodTime, which debuts stateside in August. The film comes from indie directors Ben and Josh Safdie and finds Twilight star Robert Pattinson as a bank robber trying to break his brother out of jail. Barkhad Abdi and Jennifer Jason Leigh are among the supporting cast.
Early word of mouth for the A24 offering has been quite positive. It stands at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and it was reportedly greeted with a six minute standing ovation in Cannes. Much of the praise has been awarded to Mr. Pattinson. If the pic is able to break out in any substantial way in the U.S., he could emerge as a dark horse candidate for Best Actor and the Original Screenplay could get some buzz as well.
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