Tag: Alejandro Edda

The Forever Purge Box Office Prediction

Opening on July 2nd, The Forever Purge is billed as the final picture in the horror franchise that began in 2013 and has now spawned four sequels. It is a direct sequel to 2016’s The Purge: Election Year and follows the 2018 prequel The First Purge. Everardo Gout directs and James DeMonaco (who made the first three entries) serves as co-producer and screenwriter. The cast includes Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin, Alejandro Edda, and Will Patton.

Forever sports the highest production budget of the quintet at approximately $25 million (the rest were all in single or lower double digits). The series has been a hugely profitable and consistent venture for Universal with all four pics grossing between $64-$79 million domestically. The high mark came with Election Year while the lowest was actually the original.

We are still at a point pandemic wise where releases are not generating what they normally might under traditional summertime circumstances. The lowest three-day start for a Purge is from 2018 with The First Purge. The Friday to Sunday total was $17.3 million. However, the five-day holiday tally was just over $31 million.

While expectations should be tempered, this franchise has shown an ability to attract an audience. A start in the high teens range is feasible. There would be champagne bottles popping if it somehow manages to top $20 million. Yet I’ll project that this final (?) Purge ends up with the lowest premiere of the bloody bunch.

The Forever Purge opening weekend prediction: $16.1 million (Friday to Monday estimate)

For my The Boss Baby: Family Business prediction, click here:

The Boss Baby: Family Business Box Office Prediction

American Made Movie Review

American Made is fun while it lasts and the same can be said of the characters living through it for the most part. The film tells the true-life story of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), a TWA pilot in the late 1970s who’s grown quite bored with his job. Early on, he creates turbulence on a flight just to break the monotony. Life perks up considerably when his services are utilized by the CIA to deal with Manuel Noriega’s Panamanian government and run guns to the Contras in what would become the biggest scandal of President Reagan’s administration. Seal’s shady interactions with the U.S. government aren’t the only item in his new job description as he starts a lucrative side business bringing cocaine back to the states from Columbia. This brings him front and center with Pablo Escobar (Mauicio Meija) and Jorge Ochoa (Alejandro Edda).

For most of Made‘s fast moving running time, Gary Spinelli’s screenplay creates a world where Seal is gloriously ambivalent as to the dangerous decisions he makes. He moves his family from Louisiana to the tiny town of Mena, Arkansas where the piles of money he’s earning is buried in the backyard and at new banks that miraculously pop up in the community. His wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) doesn’t ask too many questions, but she also makes it humorously clear that she doesn’t trust a thing her hubby is doing.

The tone of American Made can be slightly jarring if you really think about it. We’re dealing with real-life events that spawned real-life tragedies like illegal arms deals and the drug epidemic that swept the 1980s. However, that’s not on Seal’s mind or the picture’s for that matter. He’s too busy creating his own version of the American Dream and his journey through actual history casts him as a Forrest Gump like figure if Forrest had no moral compass.

For this decade, Cruise has mostly concentrated on starring in a mixed bag of action and sci-fi efforts. Made reunites him with his director from one of the better ones, Edge of Tomorrow. It also gives him one of his best roles in years and a true change of pace as far as material. Domhnall Gleeson is his CIA contact Schafer, who’s endlessly energetic about the chaos his agency is creating. One of the most memorable performances comes from Caleb Landry Jones as Seal’s creepy loose cannon of a brother-in-law. You may recognize him as the creepy loose cannon brother from Get Out and Jones has that character nailed in 2017.

American Made doesn’t necessarily bring much new to the table. Some of its story lines have been covered in much more serious works. Yet it’s got a lot of energy and it’s certainly entertaining, with Cruise’s presence a big factor as to why. By its conclusion, we’re aware that its central figure is creating his own turbulence again and he probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

*** (out of four)