Box Office: Ghostbusters, Sultan, Café Society
Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 7:09PM Though the new Ghostbusters couldn't defeat the very family friendly Secret Life of Pets to take the box office crown, it was still a win for Paul Feig & Melissa McCarthy company (their best opening yet, just beating their previous best for The Heat). Other winners this weekend: Sultan, the Bollywood sports drama starring Salman Khan, is now the #1 foreign language release of the year, jumping over the Chinese hits The Mermaid and Ip Man 3; Woody Allen's Café Society experienced more demand in its opening weekend than of his films since Blue Jasmine; and, finally, the provocative survivalist family drama Captain Fantastic led by a typically sterling Viggo Mortensen expanded fairly well. Next weekend will be key for Captain Fantastic with word of mouth; there's neither anything like it in the marketplace nor really anything to compare it to in ages (since maybe The Mosquito Coast in the Eighties?) but unfortunately that much originality in topic and purpose usually hurts movies at the box office in this era of intense branding.
TOP WIDE
800+ screens. arrows indicate gaining or losing screens
🔺01 The Secret Life of Pets $50.5 (cum. $203.1)
🔺02 Ghostbusters $46 NEW Review
🔻03 The Legend of Tarzan $11.1 (cum. $103) Review
🔻04 Finding Dory $11 (cum. $445.5) Review
🔺05 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates $7.5 (cum. $31.3) Review
🔻06 The Purge: Election Year $6 (cum. $71)
🔻07 Central Intelligence $5.3 (cum. $117.5)
🔺08 The Infiltrator $5.2 (cum. $6.7) NEW Review
🔻09 The BFG $3.7 (cum. $47.3) Review
🔻10 Independence Day: Ressurection $3.4 (cum. $6.7)
Sultan is now the #1 foreign hit of the yearTOP LIMITED
Excluding previously wide.
🔻01 Sultan $985K (cum. $5.2)
🔻02 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $563K ($1.4) Review
🔺03 Cafe Society $355K NEW Review
🔺04 Captain Fantastic $277K (cum. $406K) Review
🔻05 Swiss Army Man $262K (cum. $3.7) Halfway Mark Achievements
What movies did you catch this week?
Beyond Captain Fantastic and Ghostbusters, I Netflixed it bingeing Stranger Things (we'll talk about it soon) and finally finishing Grace and Frankie Season 2, and I apologize that I didn't have Estelle Parsons on my Guest Actress ballot for Comedy and that Emmy didn't nominate her either. This is why they need blue-ribbon panels; there are just too many eligible shows that voters aren't taking seriously that contain better specific performances than the shows they vote for reflexively in all categories as we saw all over the Emmy nominations.
Reader Comments (10)
I saw The Neon Demon this week which shocked me by how totally boring it was. I really, really wanted to like it, and it just seemed like a movie set on random, and although there are clear villains, I was never really rooting for or against anyone in the movie. Naturally, I'm still there for whatever Refn does next. ;)
I also the De Palma documentary, which is pretty great fan service, basically a movie-by-movie run-through of his career. I'm a fan, so it was satisfying.
Go Ghostbusters! Is Melissa McCarthy are only true box office-bringing movie star?
I got to go to my first movie premiere last night. It was for a documentary about a local celebrity called Happy: A Small Film with a Big Smile. It may go around the film festival circuit; if it does, I hope you get to see it. The subject is about a local artist and how he dealt with the loss of his partner through his artwork. It was also a love letter to Augusta which was nice as I've lived here almost 15 years and can occasionally get caught up in the using the term "Disgusta". The documentary was well made and moving quite often (sometimes a bit too cheesy/goofy, but not annoyingly so). I can be heartless occasionally, so the robot imagery in the artist's paintings/sketches was touching.
Either way, the theater was at capacity and full of emotion for one of our local faves. It may not have been a glitzy affair of Hollywood or NY that I've seen covered on Entertainment Tonight, but was fun to be part of something new and special all the same. I hope you get to see the film one day.
I saw "Independence Day: Resurrection" which was not as horrible as I expected ( yes I am a sci-fi movie fan) but not that interesting either. It's hard to believe that it took SIX screenwriters to rehash the original plot " Top Gun meets War of the Worlds" . It was nice to see the old cast ( except for Judd Hirsh whose scenes are painful to watch)- the new younger stars are pretty but dull- but hey this is a movie all about aliens and huge space ships on that level it delivers. Yes there is a gay subplot- but it does not involved any of the hot space marines (even thought Travis Tope seems to have a real man crush on Liam Hemsworth) Hemsworth better hope his brother gets him a gig in one of those Marvel hero flicks.
Mike -- i need to see that De Palma movie. I feel dumb that i haven't made it to that one yet.
I skipped the theater because it is surface-of-the-sun hot outside. So, I watched Payment on Demand, Bette Davis' first RKO picture after her contract at WB ended. A nice vehicle to showcase Bette Davis as a star. But it isn't very good. A lot of third-rate supporting players who were just not up to the task. Plus, it's very stage-y, with fade ins and outs of the background scenery to boot!
Also saw A Woman's Secret with Maureen O'Hara and Gloria Grahame. It has been recommended to me so many times, but now I wonder why. The movie starts out well, with shades of All About Eve, and a shooting. You would think OHara and Grahame are the leads. But about 1/4 of the way through, Melvyn Douglas (is there any actor more boring than Melvyn Douglas?) takes over. And the movie just goes off the rails. Grahame is pretty good (I didn't know she married Nicholas Ray ... AND later married his son from a previous marriage ... escandalo!). But poor Maureen. She's so pretty in this one, but she's also just awful in it. Why did she agree to take this awful role, I wonder. Not even La Streep could breath life into this one.
Just came back from seeing NEON BULL. Interesting film with some very tender peaceful moments and then some visceral ones.
Saturday was my Birthday, so I did my usual double feature and saw Ghostbusters and Finding Dory. I thought Ghostbusters was just meh. Most of the jokes didn't land to me, the characters were paper thin, the villain was terrible and the third act was overblown. It wasn't a terrible film by any means nor was it a great one. It was just forgettable. In saying that, if it gives little girls something to look up to or something to play around as then I can't complain too much.
As for Finding Dory; I liked the first film a lot but it felt very much like a one film premise, so I wasn't too excited about a sequel. Thankfully, this movie showed that I had nothing to worry about. While not the greatest film ever made, it really was good fun and one of the strongest written films of the summer. Pixar really does know how to pull at the heart strings... except during the Cars movies.
Remember a few months ago when the Google homepage featured the work of Lotte Reiniger? It made me seek our her film The Adventures of Prince Achmed from 1926. Many consider it the first animated feature-length film. It uses her trademark silhouette cut-outs to tell the connected stories of Prince Achmed, Aladdin, etc. It was interesting, especially when you consider how long ago it was made.
Also saw Ghostbusters - definitely had some script/editing issues and probably should've been funnier considering all the talent involved, but overall I found it to be fun summer blockbuster silliness. A solid B, maaaaybe B+.
I saw Ghostbusters - Hilarious but not groundbreaking. Kate McKinnon was the best!
The Shallows. I'd agree that it's the best shark movie since Jaws. Slow start (and way too much slow motion), but entertaining all the same. Blake Lively's best, and reminded me of Ryan Reynolds in Buried. Best acting for the couple.
Slow west-beautiful but not all that gripping.
Big short-I liked it, it´s not subtle but it actually felt like the filmmakers cared about what they were telling.
and binged Stranger things, I liked it a lot, it´s not deep but oh so very entertaining. The nostalgia is out of control perhaps but since it references just about all the movies and books I love I didn´t care. Hopefully there will be more "chapters" in this visual book.