Welcome to the very first edition of Box Office Flashback, where we'll be looking back at the box office results on this weekend 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 years ago. Most entries will be discussing the new releases from that weekend, but I'll also be highlighting holdover movies, if a title or two stays at #1 ahead of the newcomers. So, without further ado:
One Year Ago--August 25, 2018: Romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians continued to earn crazy rich box office, coming in at #1 for the second weekend in a row, with $24.8 million, on its way to a gross of $174.5 million. In second was giant ancient shark movie The Meg, swimming toward a final gross of $145.4 million. The week's biggest newcomer was The Happytime Murders, an ill-fated attempt to do a loose remake of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, only with puppets instead of cartoons, and with a lot more hard-R content. The problem was, other than the movie sucking, was that R-rated puppets weren't exactly a novel concept, and even human star Melissa McCarthy couldn't get an opening bigger than $9.5 million and a final gross of $20.7 million. Farther down the list, boy-and-his-robotic dog flick A-X-L opened in 9th, and would finish its run with only $6.5 million. Outside the Top 10, the unnecessary remake of prison break drama Papillion, with Charlie Hunnam and soon-to-be-Oscar-winner Rami Malek subbing in for Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, opened to $1.1 million and would finish with only $2.3 million. Even farther down, the thriller Searching, starring John Cho as a man looking for his missing daughter, set entirely on computer screens, opened well on nine screens and would successfully expand in the weeks to come.
Five Years Ago--August 22, 2014: After two weeks on top, the latest incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles switched spots with the film it had knocked out of #1, Guardians of the Galaxy. Michelangelo, et al,. would eventually earn $191.2 million while Groot, et al. would end with $333.2 million, good enough for #3 for 2014. Opening in third was YA adaption If I Stay, starring Chloe Grace Moretz as a teen girl in a coma who must decide if she wants to return to life after a car accident left her with debilitating injuries, or pass on. While it was no The Fault in Our Stars, it did quite well, opening to $15.7 million and ending with $50.5 million on an $11 million budget. Also opening was Where the Game Stands Tall, a Christian-themed biopic of football coach Bob Ladouceur, played by Jesus himself, Jim Caviezel, with Laura Dern as his wife. It would end up grossing $30.1 million. Flopping out of the gate was the Robert Rodriguez-directed Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Nine years after the original Sin City was a critical and commercial hit, the sequel got disastrous reviews and even worse box office, finishing with $13.8 million.
Ten Years Ago--August 21, 2009: As historically accurate as its title is correctly spelled, Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic Inglourious Basterds dominated, the box office, opening with $38.1 million. Starring Brad Pitt as the officer in charge of an all-Jewish Nat-zi hunting squad, Melanie Laurent as a Jewish movie theater owner in France who has her own plans against the Third Reich, and German actor Christoph Waltz as a Nazi officer who has successfully weaponized charm and politeness, the film would get Tarantino his first Oscar nominations since Pulp Fiction and would win Waltz, who has previously been unknown in America, his first Academy Award Oh, and the film would go on to gross $120.6 million, the most for a Tarantino film at the time. Tarantino's old friend Robert Rodriguez would have an opening just as awful as Sin City's five years later, but his family comedy Shorts, about a magical rock that causes chaos in a suburban neighborhood, was much cheaper, so its final gross of $20.9 million, while a disappointment, wasn't an embarrassment. Finishing outside the Top 10 was Post Grad, starring Alexis Bledel as a recent college grad having a quarter-life crisis, ended its run with only $6.4 million, despite a supporting cast including Michael Keaton, Carol Burnett, J.K. Simmons, and Jane Lynch.
Fifteen Years Ago--August 20, 2004: Renny Harlin's prequel Exorcist: The Beginning, starring Stellan Skarsgard as the young Father Merrin, opened to $18.1 million. The backstory behind the movie is far more interesting than the film itself. Paul Schrader had originally been hired to direct the film, but Warner Bros. hated his cut so much they fired him and hired Harlin, who ended up re-shooting almost the entire film. Predictability, critics lambasted the film, and after a decent opening, audiences largely ignored it, as it finished with $41.8 million. Opening in second was the comedy Without a Paddle, in which Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, and Dax Shepard take a canoe trip to find the legendary skyjacker D.B. Cooper and his ill-gotten loot. Burt Reynolds shows up as a mountain man. Paddle opened to $13.5 million, but struck a chord with late summer moviegoers, finishing with a much better than expected $58.2 million. The very low-budget thriller Open Water, about a couple finding themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean after their scuba diving charter left without them, was no Blair Witch Project, but turned a very nice profit, expanding to a wide opening of $11.4 million and finishing with $30.6 million. Way down in 16th was the weekend's other 70s retread, the family comedy Benji: Off the Leash, an unsuccessful attempt to revive the series about the ultra-cute stray dog and his human friends. It would gross only $3.8 million during its theatrical run.
Twenty Years Ago--August 20, 1999: M. Night Shyamalan's twisty thriller The Sixth Sense, in which tiny Haley Joel Osment sees dead people, including...well, you know who, continued to dominate the box office, making $24 million in its third weekend on its way to $293.5 million. The Hollywood satire Bowfinger, starring Steve Martin as a bottom-of-the-barrel director, and Eddie Murphy as the paranoid superstar Martin secretly films to be the lead in his new movie, came in second for the second weekend in a row, making $10.6 million, eventually finishing with $66.4 million. Opening in third is the comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, featuring Hugh Grant as a mild-mannered guy who discovers his finance is the daughter of notorious mob boss James Caan. Hijinks ensure. The film, which is most notable for co-starring seemingly half the cast of the then-new The Sopranos, which had finished its first season a few months prior, would open to $10.2 million and finish with $33.9 million. It took just a few years for Jean-Claude Van Damme to go from top box office attraction to straight-to-video has-been, with his unasked-for sequel Universal Soldier: The Return the final stop before his films started premiering directly at Blockbuster. The sci-fi actioner opened in 7th to $4.6 million and end with $10.7 million. Scream screenwriter and Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson was able to use his clout to make his directorial debut with the the comic thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle, with Katie Holmes and Barry Williams as high school students who kidnap their mean teacher, played by Helen Mirren. Not even the future Dame could get people interested, as the film opened to $3.3 million and would only gross $9 million, sending Williamson to work primarily in TV from then on.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--August 26, 1994: Oliver Stone's controversial (to say the least) media satire Natural Born Killers opened at #1, taking in $11.2 million. The film, in which Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play charismatic serial killers who become media sensations, with Robert Downey, Jr. as the host of a sleazy tabloid show desperate to interview them and Tommy Lee Jones as a corrupt prison warden. The film touched a nerve in a country then in the early stages of the O.J. Simpson murder case and the national obsession thereof, opening to $11.2 million and eventually grossing (in both senses of the word) $50.3 million. Little attention was paid to the weekend's other two newcomers. Camp Nowhere was a Disney family comedy about a bunch of pre-teens who scam their parents into sending them to a fake camp, with Christopher Lloyd poising as the director. It opened to $2.8 million and finished with $10.5 million. Meanwhile, the western comedy Wagons East!, about a group of pioneers who decide to head back home, is notable only for being the final film of John Candy. Amid scathing reviews, it opened to only $1.9 million and made $4.4 million.
Thirty Years Ago--August 25, 1989: Candy's August movie this year did significantly better, as Uncle Buck, spending its second weekend at the top, remains one of his more fondly-remembered vehicles. He plays the titular Buck, a ne'er-do-well who gets recruited to watch his much more successful brother's kids (including Macaulay Culkin, 16 months before Home Alone and Gaby Hoffmann) when he and his wife have to go out of town for an emergency. Amy Madigan played Buck's long-suffering girlfriend, and Laurie Metcalf played a flirty neighbor. The comedy made $6.3 million that weekend on its way to a $66.8 million final. Candy's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles co-star Steve Martin held down #2 with Ron Howard's ensemble comedy Parenthood, also a sizable hit, as it would ultimately slip past $100 million by the end of its run (incidentally, both these films would be adapted into TV shows not once but twice, with only the second Parenthood series having much in the way of success). Audiences preferred the holdovers to the newcomers, as such long-running titles as The Abyss, When Harry Met Sally..., and Turner and Hooch making more than any of the weekend's newcomers. The best opening of the lot belonged to the Cold War thriller The Package, where Army officer Gene Hackman uncovers a conspiracy to stop nuclear talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Director Andrew Davis apparently liked working with co-star Tommy Lee Jones so much that he cast him in his next two movies, Under Siege and The Fugitive. The film opened to $1.9 million and ended with $10.7 million. At least it made the Top 10. The same couldn't be said for the sci-fi film Millennium, where Kris Kristofferson investigates a plane crash only to discover that the passengers had been kidnapped to 1000 years into the future. It would make $1.6 million its first weekend and top out at $5.8 million. Meanwhile, the John Belushi biopic Wired couldn't even come up with $1 million for its opening. It would eventually gross just $1.1 million and nearly killed Michael Chiklis's career before it even started.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--August 24, 1984: The largely forgotten Clint Eastwood thriller Tightrope, in which he played a police detective tracking down a serial killer targeting New Orleans's prostitutes, spent its second week at the top, taking in $7.2 million on its way to $48.1 million. Tightrope topped a list of much more fondly remembered movies, such as Ghostbusters (still second 12 weeks into its run), Red Dawn, Purple Rain, Revenge of the Nerds, and The Karate Kid. The week's sole new opener was the Rob Lowe comedy Oxford Blues, where he played an American kid who scams his way into Oxford University. It would open in 8th with $2.5 million and would finish with $8.8 million.
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