It’s got LL Cool J in a supporting role, so instead of the obvious choice of Grumpy Old Boxers, let’s call Grudge Match “Grandpa Said Knock You Out” shall we? The premise is essentially one big gimmick: take two actors known for classic boxing movies and have them duke it out in a geriatric brawl. That’s about all there is to it, save for a funny post credits sequence that has more biting humor (both literally and figuratively) than anything that transpired in the previous 110 minutes. Said sequence also has nothing to do with the plot before it.
Sylvester Stallone spent a total of 30 years with his Rocky franchise in which the 1976 original won Best Picture. Robert De Niro won a Best Actor statue for his work in Scorsese’s Raging Bull in 1980. Here they are The Kid (De Niro) and Razor (Stallone). They fought two matches years and years ago which resulted in wins for each. The hotly awaited Grudge Match never materialized primarily due to a dispute over a woman (Kim Basinger).
When a promoter played by Kevin Hart begrudgingly enlists the two for a rematch, we got lots of old people jokes. Stallone, in particular, doesn’t even own a TV and WHAT ARE THESE IPADS AND THIS THING CALLED CALL WAITING?!?!?! There’s Alan Arkin as Razor’s trainer basically playing a version of his Oscar winning role in Little Miss Sunshine. Jon Bernthal becomes The Kid’s instructor and he is the son from Basinger that he never meets until present day. Bernthal has a precocious 8 year old son who teaches The Kid to be a grandpa. Also, Bernthal’s character is named B.J. and the writers get some comedic mileage out of it. This is the level of humor we are playing in, folks!
Grudge Match is chock full of cliches and a healthy portion of flat and obvious jokes. The best moments come from the amusing interplay between Hart and Arkin. We’ve already seen Stallone go to this well once before with 2006’s Rocky Balboa. Bringing De Niro along for a mostly stale second installment is about as unnecessary as it sounds.
Expanding nationwide one day after Oscar nominations are revealed, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper hits theaters Friday. Bradley Cooper has been getting some of the best reviews of his career playing the real life title character Chris Kyle, known for having the most kills in U.S. military history. Sienna Miller costars as his wife.
Trailers and TV spots have been quite effective and the solid critical reaction helps. Sniper seems likely to receive a Best Picture nomination, though that’s not guaranteed (my final predictions arrive Tuesday). The pic could particularly play well in middle America.
Last January, another war themed flick Lone Survivor debuted to higher than anticipated grosses with $38 million. That would seem to be a fair range to put Sniper in. In fact, I believe it could contend for biggest January premiere ever. That honor currently belongs to Ride Along, which took in $41.5 million a year ago. My estimate has Sniper falling just shy of that mark.
American Sniper opening weekend prediction: $40.6 million
For my prediction on The Wedding Ringer, click here:
The second box office weekend of the new year gives us three new releases: Liam Neeson’s return to his action franchise Taken 3, the civil rights awards hopeful Selma, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice. You can find my individual prediction posts on them here:
Taken 3 should have no trouble opening at the top spot while Selma should manage a solid second place debut. Due to its limited number of screens it’s premiering on, Inherent Vice is likely to land far outside the top five. I have it earning $1.8 million.
As for holdovers such as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Into the Woods, and Unbroken, all should lose less than half their audience from the previous frame. It could be a real fight between them for numbers 3-5. The same cannot be said for The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, which is primed for a hefty fall that’s not uncommon for horror pics.
And with that, my estimates for the weekend’s top 5:
1. Taken 3
Predicted Gross: $32.8 million
2. Selma
Predicted Gross: $17.2 million
3. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Predicted Gross: $12.1 million (representing a drop of 45%)
4. Into the Woods
Predicted Gross: $11.8 million (representing a drop of 37%)
5. Unbroken
Predicted Gross: $11.7 million (representing a drop of 35%)
Box Office Results (January 2-4)
As expected, the third and final Hobbit effort spent its third weekend at #1 with $21.7 million, just under my $23.3M prediction. Its total stands at $220 million and should get to around $275M domestic.
In second in its sophomore frame was Into the Woods with $18.7 million – right on target with my $18.5M projection. Its total since Christmas stands at $90 million and $150M is in sight. Another Christmas release, Unbroken, was third with $18.1 million compared to my $19.2M estimate. Its cume is up to $87 million. It could end up between $140-145M.
The Woman in Black 2: The Angel of Death was the weekend’s only new offering and it performed better than anticipated with $15 million, ahead of my $11.1M prediction. As mentioned earlier, look for it to fall precipitously next weekend.
Family holdovers made up the five and six slots, both in their third weekends. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb took in $14.5 million, on target with my $14.3M prognosis. Annie made $11.2 million and I said… $11.2 million! Boom! Their respective total grosses are $89M and $72M.
The Equalizer shares primarily its name only with the 1980s show it got its moniker from and much more with Taken and Denzel Washington’s own Man on Fire. Reuniting with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, the picture aims to be nothing more than finding clever ways for its star to violently kill bad guys. In that sense, Fuqua’s stylish work and Denzel’s restrained cool (at least in outward personality) often work here. Expectations for anything beyond that should be tempered.
Our headliner is Robert McCall, who is unquestionably the Jack Bauer of hardware store employees. He spends his days there and his nights at a diner where he strikes up a friendly relationship with Teri, a teenage hooker with a heart of gold (Chloe Grace Moretz) who’s also an aspiring singer. Why the filmmakers didn’t give her a child with debilitating asthma or other medical ailment to complete the troika of movie cliches is unknown. Speaking of Russian numbers, five is the number of well connected mobsters from that country that McCall offs when he gets involved with Teri’s affairs. And that leads to a whole lotta Denzel bad assery for the pic’s padded two hour plus running time.
If you hadn’t guessed, McCall is no average hardware store employee. His background is only glossed over but there’s been involvement with Black Ops and the CIA. We get a scene with Melissa Leo and Bill Pullman that provides a little insight. Yet The Equalizer doesn’t spend much time on character development. After all, there’s vengeance to be doled out. McCall’s glory days of government service may have provided quite a satisfactory viewing experience. It would certainly be more insightful than the several minutes of screen time where McCall helps an overweight employee become a security guard.
Back to the vengeance. It’s no secret that Denzel does this kind of thing better than most. If not for his participation, this might be a direct to VOD release. The decision to make his character an indestructible killing machine saps a good bit of tension away. The Russian mobsters are no different than ones you’ve seen before. It comes down to this – if you thought Taken was pure action bliss, sign up. This is what Man on Fire level for me: not one of Denzel’s more memorable entries, but OK.
McCall’s employment locale of Home Mart does provide him with some clever tools to dispense of his prey. One suspects, though, that if he’d worked at Burger King, it’d be no different. He would’ve figured out a method to decapitate baddies with a Whopper wrapper and dislodge tracheas with a chicken fry. He’s just that resourceful.
A serious Oscar hopeful expands nationwide this Friday as Selma opens. Focusing on the 1965 voting rights marches, the film casts David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King and the supporting cast includes Tom Wilkinson, Tim Roth, Carmen Ejogo and Oprah Winfrey, who also serves as a producer.
Selma is considered to be at the top of the list for potential Oscar winners. Director Ana DuVernay is likely to be the first African American woman to receive a nomination. Reviews have been strong and its Rotten Tomatoes meter is at 100%.
It’s easy to see where they’d be a wide interest and I expect Selma’s debut to be strong. My main challenge here: I’ve yet to see a count of screens for its expansion Friday. For now, I’ll assume a roll out of around 2000 screens. If that’s the case, I look for a per screen average similar to the last picture that Oprah was involved with, Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
That would get in the high teens for its opening a week before Oscar nominations are revealed.
Paul Thomas Anderson has certainly been making some of the most fascinating pictures of the last nearly two decades with Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master among his credits. This Friday, his latest effort Inherent Vice makes its debut. The crime thriller/comedy boasts an all star cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short and Owen Wilson.
Based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, critical notices for Vice has been generally positive if a bit under Anderson’s normal acclaim. Its Rotten Tomatoes meter stands at 71% currently. Like most of the director’s work, this is certainly not expected to be a blockbuster and is primarily aimed at core fans. As expected, it’s had a successful run in limited release but faces the question as to how well it plays nationwide. Currently estimates put it at just over 400 theaters (relatively low) Friday.
Inherent Vice could pull in about the same per screen average as Joaquin’s last pic Her which expanded one year ago. I’ll estimste it gets a little higher since it’s on considerably less screens, but that still leaves it struggling to reach $2 million out of the gate.
Inherent Vice opening weekend prediction: $1.8 million
Once again Liam Neeson is back in vengeance mode as Taken 3 makes its way to theaters this Friday. The 2009 original kicked off a new career for Mr. Neeson as an improbable action star and it’s paid major dividends for him.
No one expected the first Taken to perform as it did when it made $24.7 million on its way to a $139 million domestic haul. The 2012 sequel kept the momentum going with a $49.5 million premiere with an eventual gross of $145 million.
Forest Whitaker joins the mix this time along with returnees Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen (though not long for her according to the spoiler happy TV spots). One must wonder if audience anticipation will wane a bit this time around. While the second go round did outdo the first, it wasn’t considered as solid as the original. Moviegoers may be growing slightly weary of viewing Neeson’s special set of skills.
Nevertheless, while the third entry may end up being the lowest domestic grosser of the franchise, I still see it topping $30 million out of the gate and easily topping the charts next weekend.
The first weekend of 2015 at the box office should be dominated by Christmas time holdovers. Only one new release is out – horror sequel The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death. You can read my detailed prediction post on it here:
In order for Black to even have a shot at the top spot, it would need to outdo the $20 million that its predecessor debuted at and that seems highly unlikely. I believe it’ll even fail to crack the top five.
The race for #1 could come down to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Unbroken, and Into the Woods. I believe Hobbit should manage a three-peat with the other two battling it out for second. Family fare Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and Annie should round out the top five.
And with that, my top 6 predictions for the weekend:
1. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Predicted Gross: $23.3 million (representing a drop of 42%)
2. Unbroken
Predicted Gross: $19.2 million (representing a drop of 37%)
3. Into the Woods
Predicted Gross: $18.5 million (representing a drop of 40%)
4. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Predicted Gross: $14.3 million (representing a drop of 30%)
5. Annie
Predicted Gross: $11.2 million (representing a drop of 33%)
6. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death
Predicted Gross: $11.1 million
Box Office Results (December 25-28)
The Christmas weekend box office saw a host of new films premiering and expanding, but The Hobbit three-quel stayed on top with $40.9 million. This was right on track with my $42.4M estimate. Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic has earned $168M in two weeks.
The #2 and #3 spots belonged to newcomers that greatly exceeded my expectations. Disney’s Into the Woods scored with $31 million over Friday to Sunday and $46.1 million since its Christmas bow, well ahead of my respective $21.8M and $30.1M projections. Rob Marshall’s generally well-received musical clearly hit its target audience and then some.
Despite middling reviews, Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken also opened very high with $30.6 million from Friday to Sunday and $46 million since Christmas. This blew away my $20.5M and $28.6M predictions.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb held up well in weekend #2 with $20.2 million, just above my $18.7M projection. While it will certainly be the lowest earner of the franchise, its total stands at a fair $54 million and it should manage to pass the century mark (though not by much).
Annie was fourth with $16.5 million, right in line with my $16.9M estimate. It also benefited in its sophomore frame from family audiences on break and its total stands at $45 million, despite its woeful critical reaction.
As for other newbies, Mark Wahlberg’s The Gambler had a so-so debut with $9.1 million over the traditional weekend. My estimate? $9.1 million (gold star!). Its $14.1M Christmas to Sunday take did barely exceed my $12.2M prediction.
Oscar hopeful The Imitation Game opened wide with fabulous results with $7.9 million (Fri to Sun) and $10.9 million since December 25. This out shined my respective estimates of $5.3M and $7.2M.
The news was not so good for Tim Burton’s Big Eyes. Despite mostly positive notices, adult audiences simply had so much to choose from that this was ignored. It made $3 million from Friday to Sunday and $4.4 million since Christmas, lower than my projections of $5.5M and $7.4M.
Finally, The Interview. Opening on a scant 331 screens due to large chain boycotts, the Seth Rogen/James Franco international headline of a raunchy comedy managed a pretty commendable $1.8 million (Fri to Sun) and $2.8 million since the holiday. It didn’t reach my predictions of $3.1M and $4.4M, but this still isn’t bad considering it reportedly made $15 million through its online distribution offerings.
And that’ll do it for now, folks! Happy New Year!!!
For movie lovers, the year 2015 has been eagerly awaited for a number of reasons. As you’ll see, tonight I am listing my 15 most anticipated pictures of the upcoming year. In order to prove how big next year could be (it’s widely expected to set records in terms of box office), here’s just some of what I left off:
The reboot of the Terminator series (Genisys) that returns Schwarzenegger
A big-budget Peter Pan reboot (Pan) starring Hugh Jackman
Iron Man director Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book
Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella
The latest films from notable directors like Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak), Michael Mann (Blackhat), the Wachowskis (Jupiter Ascending), Neill Blomkamp (Chappie), and Ron Howard (In the Heart of the Sea)
The film version of HBO’s Entourage
The seventh Fast and Furious entry which features Paul Walker’s final work
The Peanuts Movie where Charlie Brown and company finally come to the silver screen
So… what did make the cut? Read on:
15. The Fantastic Four
Release Date: August 7
20th Century Fox had solid box office results but a mediocre product with their two Fantastic Four pics that featured Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, and company. There is hope here with the reboot – Chronicle director Josh Trank is behind the camera with a cast that includes Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell.
14. Mad Max: Fury Road
Release Date: May 15
Director George Miller’s return to the series that made Mel Gibson a star puts Tom Hardy in the title role with Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult supporting. I’ve always been curious about this one, but its inclusion in the list is much due to the fabulous trailer that was recently released.
13. Ted 2
Release Date: June 26
Seth MacFarlane’s 2012 original made a huge splash. It was one of the better comedies in recent years and earned $218 million domestically. Mark Wahlberg is back with MacFarlane voicing the vulgar bear.
12. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
Release Date: November 20
I was a bit disappointed in Part 1, but hope still springs eternal for the finale of the franchise in which we’ll bid farewell to Katniss and company.
11. Jurassic World
Release Date: June 12
Colin Trevorrow takes over Universal’s dino franchise that Spielberg started. Star Lord himself, Chris Pratt, headlines the cast that includes Bryce Dallas Howard and Vincent D’Onofrio. Expect young moviegoers and those nostalgic for the original from over 20 years ago to RSVP.
10. Joy
Release Date: December 25
Jennifer Lawrence could find herself once again in awards conversations playing real life Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop. Joy is easily included because of its director – David O. Russell, whose last three efforts (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) have all been Best Picture nominees.
9. Mission: Impossible 5
Release Date: December 25
This Tom Cruise franchise was completely reinvigorated with Brad Bird’s fourth flick, Ghost Protocol. Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg are back assisting Ethan Hunt with Jack Reacher‘s Christopher McQuarrie taking over directorial duties.
8. Ant-Man
Release Date: July 17
Never. Doubt. Marvel. Ever. They doubted that Iron Man could be a successful franchise. Same with Guardians of the Galaxy. So… if a picture called Ant-Man starring Paul Rudd sounds like a gamble, my guess is just wait. Peyton Reed directs with Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas costarring.
7. The Revenant
Release Date: December 25
Set in the 1800s, this drama finds Leonardo DiCaprio seeking revenge on thieves who left him to die. Tom Hardy costars with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (maker of Birdman) directing.
6. Tomorrowland
Release Date: May 22
As mentioned earlier, Brad Bird infused life into the Mission: Impossible series recently. He also made classic Pixar titles The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Here he’s back with Disney making a secretive fantasy adventure that stars George Clooney and Hugh Laurie.
5. St. James Place
Release Date: October 16
It’s a Cold War thriller… directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by the Coen Brothers. Starring Tom Hanks. Enough said.
4. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Release Date: May 1
The follow-up to 2012’s mega blockbuster finds the gang all returning (including director Joss Whedon) with James Spader voicing the title character bad guy.
3. Spectre
Release Date: November 6
After the billion dollar worldwide gross of Skyfall, Daniel Craig is back for his fourth go round as 007 with double Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as the main villain. Sam Mendes returns to direct after the smashing Skyfall success.
2. The Hateful Eight
Release Date: Fall
For those who are familiar with this blog, you know that (in my mind) Quentin Tarantino has never made a movie that isn’t terrific. Let’s hope the trend continues here with this Western starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, and Channing Tatum.
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Release Date: December 18
I mean… what else could possibly top new Tarantino? I’ve written plenty about it already so I won’t go on. Needless to say, the film world is breathlessly anticipating what JJ Abrams does with the most famous franchise in movie history.
And that’s all for now, folks! Here’s to a great 2015 and the pictures that populate it!
Nearly three years ago, British horror pic The Woman in Black starring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, performed admirably at the U.S. box office with a $54 million gross (and a much better than expected $20M opening weekend).
And now the sequel arriving January 2 that marks the first major wide release of 2015. Radcliffe does not make a return trip and the cast features no well-known actors. Angel of Death will need to capitalize on audience affection for the original. The problem: there likely isn’t much of it. While the original made more than anticipated, it’s hardly considered a genre classic (though it is worth a look). This could follow a similar pattern to the first picture of 2014: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which debuted to a less than estimated $18 million. Black, unfortunately, doesn’t even have the following of that franchise.
I believe this should open over double digits, but not by a whole lot.
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death opening weekend prediction: $11.1 million
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