By Nathaniel R
The box office prelude to a mid-week Fourth of July (today) rested on Indiana Jones's 5th outing but he didn't truly deliver in The Dial of Destiny, a sequel that few people outside of Hollywood's money-obsessed board rooms were asking for. Hollywood is discovering that it can't live on franchises alone. Problem is that's become Hollywood's ONLY strategy and all they've been investing in for some time now. Unfortunately for those of us who love the cinematic experience audience increasingly lukewarm or chilly response to the big franchises isn't really morphinng into interest pointed at other moviegoing options. Hollywood has been training people to only care about franchises for years and now that they've "won", we're all losing!
| Weekend Box Office (estimates? actuals? it's always a little fuzzy around holidays) June 30th - July 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = Recommended |
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| WIDE (Over 800 Screens) | LIMITED / PLATFORM |
 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY |
 EVERY BODY |
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1 🔺 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY $60.3 *NEW* 4600 screens |
1 🔺 EVERY BODY [doc] $150k *NEW* 255 screens |
|
2 ★ ELEMENTAL $12.1 (cum. $89.6) 3650 screens |
2 YOU HURT MY FEELINGS $45k (cum. $4.7) 68 screens |
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3 ★ SPIDER-MAN ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE $12 (cum. $340.3) 3405 screens
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3 🔺 THE CHILDE (South Korea) $42k *NEW* 194 screens |
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4 ★ NO HARD FEELINGS $7.8 (cum. $29.6) 3,208 screens |
4 IT AIN'T OVER [doc] $13k (cum. $665k) 30 screens |
|
5 TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS $7.3 (cum. $136.4) 2852 screens |
5 THE LAST RIDER $12k (cum. $116k) 31 screens |
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6 🔺 RUBY GILMAN TEENAKE KRAKEN $5.5 *NEW* 3400 screens |
6 ★ BLUE JEAN (UK) $12k (cum. $79k) 27 screens |
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7 THE LITTLE MERMAID $5.3 (cum. $281.2) 2430 screens |
7 CLOSE TO VERMEER [doc] $11k (cum. $110K) 8 screens |
 PAST LIVES |
 DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY... |
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8 THE FLASH $5.2 (cum. $99.4) 2718 screens |
7 ★ DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY, AND MIDNIGHT COWBOYS $7k (cum. $24k) 10 screens |
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9 ★ ASTEROID CITY $4.2 (cum. $18.6) 1901 screens |
8 ★ REVOIR PARIS (France) $7k (cum. $21k) 3 screens |
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10 GUARDIANS VOL 3 $2 (cum. $355) 1165 screens |
9 SQUARING THE CIRCLE [doc] $5k (cum. $81k) 18 screens |
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11 THE BOOGEYMAN $1.8 (cum. $41.1) 1020 screens |
10 ★ SCARLET (Italy) $4k (cum. $56k) 7 screens |
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12 🔺 PAST LIVES $1.5 (cum. $5.8) 906 screens |
11 ★ SOMEWHERE IN QUEENS (US) $3k (cum. $1.7) 7 screens |
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13 THE BLACKENING $1.4 (cum. $15.4) 853 screens |
12 CHILE 76 (Chile) $2k (cum. $150k) 7 screens |
The Harrison Ford action sequel didn't even land the weekend's highest per-screen average count. That would be the restoration of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt on just one screen in NYC. The big swing at the box office was the arthouse hit Past Lives expanding by 600+ screens to wide release where it placed just outside the top ten but with a decent per screen average. Can it continue to grow or is this it?
The animated comedy Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken had a shaky opening weekend but opening weekends don't always tell the tale with family films (which sometimes have oversized staying power).
The intersex documentary Every Body opened on a lot of screens for a doc and managed $150k. Will interest hold?
Next weekend - The buzzy raunchy girl trip comedy Joy Ride and the horror sequel Insidious: The Red Door both open in wide release. The Lesson an indie noir with Richard E Grant and Julie Delpy, an Italian film called Amanda, and the documentary The League about Baseball's 'Negro League' in the early 20th century, all open in limited release. Hot on their heels will be Tom Cruise's action-packed Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One which opens mid week (July 12th).
What did you watch this past week? I went to No Hard Feelings with friends and we laughed a loud. It was a comedy centric week as we also binged season 3 of The Other Two. At home we screened Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music doc (a must-see), and finally caught up with both A Thousand and One (strong) and Chevalier (middling). Last night, on a whim after a boozy birthday party for TFE's own Chris James, we randomly put on Book Club: The Next Chapter and lived to regret it.