Tag: Andy Garcia

Geostorm Box Office Prediction

Next weekend we will find out if Geostorm is a direct hit or disaster at the box office… or somewhere in the middle. The disaster pic marks the directorial debut of Dean Devlin, known most for producing efforts from Roland Emmerich, including Stargate, Independence Day and its sequel, and 1998’s Godzilla. Gerard Butler headlines a cast that features Ed Harris, Abbie Cornish, Jim Sturgess, Andy Garcia, and Richard Schiff.

The film was originally scheduled by Warner Bros for release over a year and a half ago. That kind of delay usually doesn’t inspire confidence. There are also movies debuting against it that could siphon some audience away, including Only the Brave and The Snowman. 

I’ll predict Geostorm doesn’t even reach the teens for a muted start.

Geostorm opening weekend prediction: $11.2 million

For my Boo 2! A Madea Halloween prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/10/11/boo-2-a-madea-halloween-box-office-prediction/

For my Only the Brave prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/10/11/only-the-brave-box-office-prediction/

For my The Snowman prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/10/12/the-snowman-box-office-prediction/

Summer 1987: The Top 10 Hits and More

As we begin the month of August and the dog days of summer, I’ll be traveling back 30, 20, and 10 years ago to seasons past giving you the top ten hits and more of that particular time frame. Today we are going all the way to 1987.

It was a simpler time back then. There were very few sequels and franchises and reboots and a good portion of the highest grossing flicks dealt with law enforcement in action type settings. Only one picture grossed over $100 million dollars. Yes, the times have changed, but what a hoot to look back at what was burning up the box office charts three decades ago. This post will also discuss some other notable flicks outside the top ten and some big ole flops.

Let’s get to it!

10. The Living Daylights

Domestic Gross: $51 million

The 15th James Bond picture kicked off the brief two picture reign of Timothy Dalton, who took over the iconic role after the late Roger Moore’s 12 year long portrayal of 007. It’s $51M gross would just surpass the $50M earnings of Moore’s swan song, 1985’s A View to a Kill. Two summers later, Dalton would star in his swan song Licence to Kill before Pierce Brosnan donned the tuxedo six years later.

9. Robocop

Domestic Gross: $53 million

Paul Verhoeven’s futuristic sci-fi action thriller nearly received the dreaded X rating upon its release. It also received critical acclaim and spawned two sequels and a 2014 remake.

8. La Bamba

Domestic Gross: $54 million

This biopic of singer Ritchie Valens starring Lou Diamond Phillips was a major summer sleeper and even earned a Golden Globe nod for Best Picture (Drama). It also featured the Los Lobos cover of the title song that was in the top ten summer songs of 1987.

7. Dragnet

Domestic Gross: $57 million

A few years before Tom Hanks was earning back to back Best Actor Oscars, he was costarring in silly remakes of 1950s cop dramas. Dragnet managed to perform well and it’s a guilty pleasure, especially Dan Aykroyd’s take on Sgt. Joe Friday (a role made famous by Jack Webb).

6. Predator

Domestic Gross: $59 million

One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finest action pics, Predator also kicked off an impressive three picture directorial run by John McTiernan that was followed up by Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. This franchise is still going strong today, but nothing beats the hard edged original.

5. Dirty Dancing

Domestic Gross: $63 million

The biggest sleeper hit of the summer vaulted Patrick Swayze into super stardom and won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’s “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”.

4. The Witches of Eastwick

Domestic Gross: $63 million

Mad Max maker George Miller went Hollywood with this critically appreciated comedic fantasy with an all-star cast of Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

3. Stakeout

Domestic Gross: $65 million

This was the height of the buddy cop era and it propelled this one starring Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez to big grosses. A less regarded sequel costarring Rosie O’Donnell would follow six years later.

2. The Untouchables

Domestic Gross: $76 million

Brian De Palma’s take on the classic TV series was a big-budget and highly entertaining affair headlined by Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Andy Garcia, and Sean Connery (who won a Supporting Actor Oscar for his work).

1. Beverly Hills Cop II

Domestic Gross: $153 million

Eddie Murphy was just about the biggest movie star in the world in summer 1987 and that’s shown here by the enormous gross of the sequel to his 1984 classic, directed by Tony Scott. A much less successful third entry would follow seven summers later after Murphy’s box office potency had waned.

And now – here’s some other notable pictures from the season:

Full Metal Jacket

Domestic Gross: $46 million

Legendary director Stanley Kubrick’s first film in seven years (since The Shining) is now considered a modern classic, especially for its unforgettable first half featuring R. Lee Ermey’s Vietnam drill sergeant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j3_iPskjxk

Spaceballs

Domestic Gross: $38 million

This Mel Brooks spoof of Star Wars may not be in Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein territory, but it’s certainly earned quite a cult status through the last 30 years.

Adventures in Babysitting

Domestic Gross: $34 million

The directorial debut of Chris Columbus (who would go on to make Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter pics), Babysitting has also achieved cult cred in addition to its decent box office showing at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdyPJlyJ0_8

The Lost Boys

Domestic Gross: $32 million

Another flick with a rabid fan base, the teen pic cast Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, and Corey Feldman in a California town overrun by vampires.

And now for a couple of 1987 summer box office bombs:

Jaws IV: The Revenge

Domestic Gross: $20 million

12 summers prior, Steven Spielberg’s original was a landmark motion picture. By the time the fourth entry came around, the series had gotten terrible. It still has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes and Michael Caine actually missed picking up his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters because he was shooting this turkey.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Domestic Gross: $15 million

Not a solid summer for four-quels. This served as a bad ending to a series started nine years earlier. There was a moratorium on Supes pic for the next 19 years.

Ishtar

Domestic Gross: $14 million

Considered one of the largest bombs in film history at the time, this comedy with Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman was a punchline for years. Its reputation has grown a bit since.

And that’s my recap folks! I’ll be back recounting summer 1997 very soon…

Passengers Movie Review

Morten Tyldum’s Passengers is a gorgeous looking experience starring two gorgeous people that nevertheless comes up empty in its overall execution. We are presented with two souls who are lost in space and find love, but the chemistry between the two giant stars never quite connects.

These subjects come in the form of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. They are two among thousands of Earthlings on a very long trip to a new planet. How long you might ask? 120 years, which means the passengers and the crew are in hibernation mode until they reach their destination. Jim (Pratt) is jarred awake one day from his slumber and realizes he’s the only one with his eyes open and there’s 90 years left on the journey. He makes it for a year on his own in the beautifully designed ship (props to the production design team), but his loneliness leads him to wake up talented writer Aurora (Lawrence). She thinks she’s woken up accidentally like Jim and he shares his secrets with the only other talking being on board – an android bartender in the form of Michael Sheen.

The duo spend their time trying to figure why the heck they’re such early risers while also falling in love. Jon Spaihts’s screenplay attempts to grapple with the understandable but also rather cruel choice by Jim to get Aurora up. Yet once certain revelations are brought out, the script follows a rather predictable and dull path.

Lawrence and Pratt are two performers who are rarely dull or predictable, but Passengers doesn’t do them any favors. No matter how hard they try, their characters are under developed and their chemistry is passable at best.

We’ve witnessed the stranded in space genre more recently and in much better fashion, from Gravity to The Martian. Speaking of gravity, there is a scene with a loss of just that that’s nifty. Ultimately though, Passengers doesn’t add much new or intriguing, even if it’s pretty to look at.

** (out of four)

Oscar Watch: Passengers

A week ago, the prospect of this Wednesday’s Passengers receiving some Oscar attention didn’t seem totally far fetched. After all, the Academy has shown some love to the science fiction space pic genre three years ago with Gravity and last year with The Martian as they both received Best Picture nods. In addition, their respective leads Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon were nominated in the lead acting races.

Passengers is director Morten Tyldum’s follow-up to The Imitation Game, which was in the Picture race two years ago and for which he received a directing nod. And this space opera boasts Jennifer Lawrence, who’s been nominated four times since 2010 and won in 2012 for Silver Linings Playbook. So, again, not so far fetched.

And then reviews happened late this week for the sci fi romantic thriller which costars Chris Pratt. The verdict? A rather troubling 32% on Rotten Tomatoes and its Oscar chances evaporating. Passengers still has a remote shot at Visual Effects, but in all likelihood the pic will be sitting on the awards sideline.

My Oscar Watch posts will continue…

Passengers Box Office Prediction

There’s some serious star power coming to multiplexes this Christmas when Passengers debuts a week from today. The science fiction romantic thriller stars Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, who have both seen their share of blockbusters over the last few years. Morten Tyldum directs (his previous effort was the Oscar nominated The Imitation Game) and costars include Laurence Fishburne, Michael Sheen, and Andy Garcia.

The reported $120 million production finds Katniss and Star Lord stranded in space when they wake up way earlier than the other inhabitants of their vessel. There may not be a whole lot of actors who can assist in opening a movie, but the combo of these two may do the trick.

Predicting exact numbers over the Christmas weekend is a tricky proposition. Passengers debuts on Wednesday and we are going to factor in Wednesday-Monday. The 26th is a federal holiday and grosses of years past have shown that to sometimes be a bigger movie going day than even Christmas. Rogue One will likely reign supreme over the long weekend with the animated Sing giving it a run for its money. That probably puts Passengers in third place with a low 30s four-day and mid 40s six-day.

Passengers opening weekend prediction: $31.4 million (Friday to Monday), $42 million (Wednesday to Monday)

For my Sing prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/12/14/sing-box-office-prediction/

For my Assassin’s Creed prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/12/14/assassins-creed-box-office-prediction/

For my Why Him? prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/12/14/why-him-box-office-prediction/

For my Fences prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/12/14/fences-box-office-prediction/

Max Steel Box Office Prediction

Mattel toys are being brought to the big screen next weekend when Max Steel debuts. The superhero tale has a reported budget of just $15-$20 million and that’s probably a good thing for its sake.

Steel features Ben Winchell in the lead alongside Ana Villafane, Andy Garcia, and Maria Bello and some CG aliens. The marketing campaign for this seems pretty darn quiet and one wonders if its studio has much faith in it.

A much higher profile Mattel related property will arrive later when Justin Lin directs a pic based on the Hot Wheels line. As far as this one goes, unless there’s a legion of Max Steel lovers clamoring for a barely marketed adaptation, I see this debuting poorly and fading quickly.

Max Steel opening weekend prediction: $3.8 million

For my The Accountant prediction, click here:

The Accountant Box Office Prediction

For my Kevin Hart: What Now? prediction, click here:

Kevin Hart: What Now? Box Office Prediction

Ghostbusters Movie Review

After over a quarter century of dormancy, the Ghostbusters have been rebooted with a female team and an appreciation for what came before it. Maybe too much appreciation. The 2016 iteration may not be ‘fraid of no ghosts, but perhaps it is of its own 1984 shadow and what followed it.

The concept here isn’t much different. Take a talented director (Paul Feig) and fill the leading roles with SNL related stars. Here it’s Melissa McCarthy (a favorite SNL host) along with former cast member Kristin Wiig and current ones Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. They’re the new Ghostbusters and the New York City setting is the same. Wiig is a Columbia professor who once cowrote a paranormal related book that she’s trying to forget about. McCarthy is her coauthor who’s now stuck in a dead-end job at a technical college along with McKinnon (she handles gadgets). Jones is an MTA employee who finds that ghosts are real in the bowels of the city’s subway. The NYC setting provides one of the most abnormal moments here when the team chows down on Papa Johns pizza. In New York City?!?!?! Product placement is vital, people…

Ghouls and goblins begin to sprout up in the Big Apple and soon the foursome find themselves in business, even if the city’s leaders don’t wish to acknowledge the presence of them or those they’re hunting. The Annie Potts secretarial duties are handled by a game Chris Hemsworth, showing off the same occasional comedic abilities he showed in another subpar 80s relaunch last summer, Vacation.

And there’s cameos by way of the franchise before it – both in human and special effects form. They serve more to make us nod in knowing appreciation than actually laugh. As for the Ghostbusters themselves? McCarthy and Wiig acquit themselves fine and have their strong moments, as does Jones. The weakest link is McKinnon, whose over the top antics work well in five minute SNL sketch bursts but seem out of place and rather annoying here.

Perhaps what hinders Ghostbusters from being a satisfactory experience is the fact that the melding of science fiction and comedy felt fresh over 30 years ago with Ivan Reitman’s original. Since then, we’ve seen everything from Men in Black to more obvious (and less pleasing) knock offs like Evolution and The Watch to name just a couple. The injection of a gender change isn’t enough to make this feel new and the CG effects add nothing out of the ordinary either. It is the ghosts of genre past that ultimately haunts what we see here.

** (out of four)

Let’s Be Cops Movie Review

Let’s Be Cops has roughly the effect of probably watching a student film trying to mimic a decent buddy cop comedy/action flick. And that may be an unfair insult to the work of students and their films. It’s amateurish, poorly written, and gives its actors (some of them quite talented, but you don’t see it here) little to work with. Director/co-writer Luke Greenfield and Nicholas Thomas’s screenplay is mostly devoid of anything resembling originality and quite absent of many genuine laughs.

The concept is simple: two lifelong buddies have made a pact to leave Los Angeles by the time they’re 30 if they haven’t “made it”. Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) is a struggling video game developer and Ryan (Jake Johnson) is a once promising college quarterback sidelined by a past injury. Clearly they haven’t made it and they’re prepared to return to Columbus, Ohio (I don’t know why my city had to be brought into this mess). A costume party interferes with their California split when they dress up as cops and – wouldn’t you know it! – they get mistaken for actual law enforcement. Suddenly women find them attractive! They can get into clubs easily! And they get caught up with some bad guy Albanians!

Let us count just some of the citations of mediocrity (to be kind) in this screenplay:

1) Jake’s past football glory days cause him to spend his days voluntarily teaching a bunch of young boys the game while cussing them out the majority of the time. It’s more creepy than funny.

2) Justin is supposed to be some genius video game developer whose bosses just don’t understand him, but his “genius” pitch for a game called Patrolman seems really familiar and dull.

3) The main baddie played by James D’Arcy is quite possibly the most cliched villain in a genre ripe with them.

4) Talented comic performers like Rob Riggle and Natasha Leggero are saddled with little to do.

I could go on and the same rule applies to Johnson and Wayans Jr., who can’t rise above the material despite their efforts. And there’s Andy Garcia as the time honored crooked cop (the true nature of his character is supposed to a big reveal, but you won’t care).

The screenwriters bank on this flimsy premise of watching these two play boy in blue providing consistent humor for 100 minutes. It would have been great if “Let’s Be Just A Little Original” would have made it into their game plan.

*1/2 (out of four)

Let’s Be Cops Box Office Prediction

Last summer, the raunchy comedy We’re the Millers was a breakout August hit which opened on a Wednesday. The Jennifer Aniston/Jason Sudeikis pic took in $37 million over its five-day frame and $26 million from Friday to Sunday, on its way to grossing over $150M domestically. This Friday, Let’s Be Cops with Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans, Jr. will attempt the same feat.

While I believe Cops could be poised for a solid debut, it seems to me that Millers territory is unlikely. Costarring Andy Garcia and Rob Riggle, Cops has received a robust marketing campaign from Fox and the trailers and TV spots are pretty funny. It’s almost been two months since the last successful comedy, 22 Jump Street, so audiences could be primed for laughs. There’s no reviews yet and that could be somewhat of a factor – seeing that negative critical reaction helped sink last month’s Sex Tape. In addition, unlike Millers, none of the stars of Cops have any sort of box office track record.

That said, the dearth of comedies out now should lead this to a three day opening in the high teens and a possible mid 20s five day haul.

Let’s Be Cops opening weekend prediction: $17.7 million (Friday-to-Sunday), $23.4 million (Wednesday-to-Sunday)

For my prediction on The Expendables 3, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/08/10/the-expendables-3-box-office-prediction/

For my prediction on The Giver, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/08/10/the-giver-box-office-prediction/