Box Office: Thor Hammers Non-Existent Competition
Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 9:20PM Amir here, bringing you the weekend’s box office report with the world’s easiest, least funny pun in the title.
Looking at this week’s numbers, virtually everything screams unremarkable. The mega-blockbuster that tops the list, Thor 2: Marvel blah blah, raked in a solid $86m, but hasn’t really excited anyone. Is this possibly because critical and audience reaction had already been heard when the film opened around the world last week? No. It’s more likely because it has only been 6 months and 5 days since the last Marvel film assaulted multiplexes and it will only be another 4 months and 26 days before another one does the same, and almost all of the studio's outings fall within a very narrow range between B- and B, qualitatively.
BOX OFFICE
01 THOR: THE DARK WORLD $86.1 *new* Review
02 JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA $11.3 (cum. $78.7)
03 FREE BIRDS $11.2 (cum. $30)
04 LAST VEGAS $11.1 (cum. $33.5)
05 ENDER'S GAME $10.25 (cum. $44) Previous Discussions
06 GRAVITY $8.4 (cum. $231.1) Many Previous Posts
07 12 YEARS A SLAVE $6.6 (cum. $17.3) Slavery in Cinema & Previous Discussions
08 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS $5.8 (cum. $90.9) Podcast & Hanks For All Ages
09 ABOUT TIME $5.1 (cum. $6.7)
10 CLOUDY WITH CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 $2.8 (cum. $109.9)
Following Thor in the second, third and fourth spots are Bad Grandpa, Last Vegas and Free Birds, the three films that occupied the same three spots last week. Free Birds maintained a better hold that I predicted seven days ago, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, always. That means last week’s chart topper, Ender’s Game, nosedived all the way down to fifth. Given the film’s weak business overseas, it’ll be a miracle if it can turn any profit. Talk of a potential sequel is also already turning mute. The three surefire Oscar nominees are still present in the top ten, with 12 Years a Slave doing great business now that it is playing on more than a 1000 screens.
In limited release, The Book Thief opened on four screens with respectable returns. This has been touted as a potential Oscar nominee in some categories by certain pundits, but I just don’t see it happening unless there is… no, it’s not going to happen. Furthermore, At Berkeley, a 4-hour documentary literally about being at Berkeley has opened on two screens for a very lucky few. I don’t know if this one will ever expand, but I regret missing it at TIFF. I’m hearing it’s one of the best films of the year.
Anyway, my weekend consisted of Dallas Buyers Club (B-), Michael Mann’s Heat (A+), Blackfish (B-) and Museum Hours, which I watched for a second time and it is still my favorite film of the year. What did you watch?
Reader Comments (16)
I watched Ender's Game and Carrie, both newly open here this week. Reading the story of Ender's Game made me feel it's going to be boring but it turned out fine. Quite entertaining actually, but Asa Butterfiled is still a bit wooden.
Question: How can About Time have lower cumulative gross than the weekly gross.
PJ- Nothing is impossible when your reporter is incompetent ;)
Thanks for pointing it out. It's corrected now.
Amir: Except The Incredible Hulk. That one was just a C+ and was (pretty much entirely) excised from canon. The final fight scene happened, sure, but for anything The Avengers said to make sense, you should just imagine a completely different movie before that scene.
Saw Blow-Up and I have to saw I am a bit surprised how flat and disconnecting I found it to be. It helps that Sarah Miles and Vanessa Redgrave are so appealing and interesting but I just found David Hemmings to be pretty much a cad. When he sees Sarah Miles sleep with his roommate, I honestly was surprised we were suddenly supposed to expect him to be upset of that turn of events because he never seemed to reciprocate. I found DePalma's pastiche of it, Blow Out, to be not only a stronger film but a very reflective, more emotionally investing film. So I was a lot more mixed than I expected and felt like some parts were cool (The Yardbirds!!!!) and aged so poorly (Those friggin' mimes!!!!). So happy this was not my first Antonioni.
Went to 2 reps in New York. Saw Sidewalk Stories, an astonishing black & white low-budget silent movie in 1980s New York that totally owns up to its The Little Tramp and The Kid and it also has an unexpected polemical twist at the end. Also saw A Touch of Sin that while good, I felt like the strongest, most interesting chapters were the first two but the text and metaphors managed to be pretty defined yet not exhausting. I've only seen Still Life from Zhangke though I can see the similar touches and eye in both movies.
MUSEUM HOURS!! !!! !!!
That is all.
(I could also add that Michael Mann's Heat sucks balls and I'm still waiting for the world to see through this man's shallow, trashy, thoroughly joyless filmography. But I'm trying to remain positive. So once again:)
MUSEUM HOURS!!! !!!! !!
I must be shallow because I find Mann's style to be the ideal in a genre picture and completely agree on giving Heat an A. Sorry, anybody who made Miami Vice happened is indirectly responsible for television respectability.
I watched Beautiful Creatures this weekend...Nathaniel has poked fun at Emmy Rossum's hamminess in the trailer, but after seeing the film, the title for Biggest Ham in BC does not go to Emmy, but to TFE's beloved, the inimitable Emma Thompson...for a fantasy drama catering to the teen set, the director surprisingly gives Emma a 10-minute scenery-chewing monologue where she literally beats herself in the head...this is Emma unbridled and it must be witnessed. Viola is the only controlled actor in the bunch, never overdoing, never underdoing, just reacting truthfully. And who knew Eileen Atkins and Margo Martindale were in this? Totally underused I might add.
Hey Nathaniel...in my haste I accidentally posted my e-mail in the previous post...would you be able to erase it? Please say yes! Thanks love!
Saw 12 Years a Slave on Friday, which... WOW. It's rare enough to see a film that leaves me too stunned to move from my seat until well into the end credits, but to see TWO such films in the space of a month?!? It's stunning. After seeing it, I don't see how Lupita Nyong'o doesn't win Best Supporting Actress (the scene with the soap!). The end didn't leave me quite as emotional as the end of Captain Phillips, and I do wish the film was better at delineating time in the larger sense (how long was Solomon at each plantation?) but the cumulative experience of watching the film was undeniably powerful. Great, great stuff.
Then on Saturday, I saw Kill Your Darlings, which had the potential to be really interesting but kind of just sat there. Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan gave really good performances but it felt a bit too slick - there were only occasional moments where I really got a sense of the Beat philosophy. Oddly enough, when we got back home, On the Road was on TV, and I thought that was much better. And holy hell, Garrett Hedlund. He is something else in that movie.
AT BERKLEY is showing on PBS in January, I believe. Not sure if that helps you, Amir, but perhaps it will make it to Canadian airwaves around the same time?
Roark - I sure as hell hope so.
mb76 - done
denny -- so glad you loved
Thanks you!
goran: No, Heat is not 8 1/2, 2001 or Persona level "these are deep questions" cinema. However, tossing that specific movie an A+ as an absolute pinnacle of crime action cinema? Absolutely. The dialogue is natural and suggests thematic content as opposed to stating it (insert Christopher Nolan joke here), the performances are nailed (particularly DeNiro and Kilmer) and the ultimate conclusion is a nice realistic bittersweet kick, such that I wouldn't call that specific film shallow. Um...because he's not "celebrating" crime? The Untouchables is shallow. Die Hard is shallow. Point Break is shallow. (They're very good films, mind, but they're still working on simplistic and shallow moral systems.) Now, trashy? Um...just because he's not out and out condemnatory of crime? Scarface is kinda trashy, until the ending. Crank: High Voltage is trashy. The Saints Row video game series is massively trashy, especially by Saints Row IV. (Gang boss becomes the President of the United States.) Okay? Trashy, relative to Mann's general genre of choice, would, to me, be pure unrestrained glorification of crime and shallow would NECESSITATE a similarly extremist black and white moral system. So, under my views, you can't be entirely shallow and trashy at the same time. You can't be (especially) deep and trashy for the genre at the same time, but you can't be entirely shallow either. But the Michael Mann who made Heat is being EVEN HANDED, which is as deep as you can get for the genre. Does that make your third adjective a reasonable complaint? That one I'll give you. Michael Mann is not a filmmaker you turn on if you want to feel better about yourself, but not every film or filmmaker needs to spread the same emotional timbre to be an artistic success.
I saw Prisoners. Jake Gyllenhaal was so great. I wished it was all about him. I loved his posture and his un-ironed, buttoned-up shirt. Hugh Jackman, not so much. The cut-to-black at the end got a big laugh!
Oh...I re-watchd that Emma monologue in Beautiful Creatures...it's about about 5 minutes, not 10...oops, my bad.