Until very recently, the first weekend of September--whether it was Labor Day weekend or the weekend afterward--has been a dumping ground, as the studios tried to wring out as much as they could from their late summer offerings. So, like last weekend, expect a bunch of movies you've long forgotten existed opening several slots down from the long-running title encased at #1.
One Year Ago--September 7, 2018: By last year, the concept of early September as a dumping ground had been replaced by the concept of the first post-Labor Day weekend as a prime spot to release a big horror movie. Last year, that movie was The Nun, the latest in the ever-expanding Conjuring Cinematic Universe. This 50s-set prequel involved a priest (Demian Bichir) and a novice (Taissa Farmiga) investigating the mysterious goings-on at an isolated Romanian abbey, where the sisters keep dying under mysterious circumstances. Could the reason be the habit-wearing demon who was the main bad guy from The Conjuring 2? Critics largely were dismissive, but the CCU was popular enough that The Nun opened to $53.8 million. Like most horror movies, however, attendance quickly dwindled after the first weekend, and the film finished its run with $117.5 million. Still, given the film's low cost, that was more than enough to greenlight a sequel. Also opening was Peppermint, the second Death Wish remake of the year, although this one was unofficial. Jennifer Garner stepped into the Bruce Willis/Charles Bronson role as a loving wife and mother who becomes a ruthless vigilante after her daughter and husband are killed by gang members. Reviewers were mostly aghast about the film, but pretty much the exact same audience that had turned out for Death Wish six months earlier came out for this, as it opened to $13.4 million, almost exactly what Death Wish had opened to. The two films would also end up with almost the exact same final gross, with Peppermint's $35.4 million only a little over a million above Death Wish's. Opening way down the chart in #11 was Christian glugefest God Bless the Broken Road, about a woman who loses her faith after her husband is killed in Afghanistan. Will she eventually have her faith restored? Spoiler alert--she does! Not even Christian audiences much cared about her story, as the film opened to only $1.4 million and finished with $2.9 million.
Five Years Ago--September 5, 2014: Guardians of the Galaxy, in its sixth weekend, continued to dominate the box office, as the top 11 movies in the country stayed exactly the same (albeit with some position switches). The best the one and only new release, The Identical, could do was 12th. Another Christian drama, this one starred real-life Elvis impersonator Blake Rayne in a duel role as twins separated at birth. One goes on to become a iconic 50s rock star, the other becomes a preacher who decides to become an impersonator of the man he doesn't know is his brother. Normally, casting well-known secular actors helps a Christian movie break out, but the presence of Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta didn't help The Identical one bit, as it opened to $1.6 million and ended up finishing at Heartbreak Hotel with only $2.8 million.
Ten Years Ago--September 4, 2009: Labor Day weekend was won by The Final Destination and Inglourious Basterds, but the latter was only barely able to hold off the weekend's top new movie, the romantic comedy All About Steve. Despite awful reviews, the starpower of Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper (respectively coming off The Proposal and The Hangover, both of which were shot after Steve) powered the film to a respectable four-day opening of $14.1 million. Bad word-of-mouth caught up with it, however, and Steve exited the stage will all of $33.9 million. Six months later, the night before winning her Oscar for The Blind Side, Bullock showed up in person to collect her Worst Actress Razzie for Steve. Another veteran of a bad 2009 romantic comedy, Gerard Butler, starred in the goofy sci-fi actoner Gamer, playing a death-row inmate being controlled in real time by a teenager (Logan Lerman) as part of a real-life/video game hybrid, while the evil tech genius that invented the game (Michael C. Hall) plots to take over the world. Critics were underwhelmed, and the film underperformed, opening to $11.2 million over the 4-day weekend and hitting Game Over with $20.5 million. Farther down the chart, director Mike Judge saw his first two live-action films, Office Space and Idiocracy, flop in theaters, only to become massive cult hits upon hitting DVD. Alas, the third time wasn't the charm in this case as Extract, starring Jason Bateman as the owner of a small vanilla extract-making factory, Ben Affleck as his ne'er-do-well friend, Mila Kunis as a new employee who Bateman is attracted to, and Kristin Wiig as Bateman's wife, flopped in theaters and was largely forgotten. The comedy opened in 9th place with $5.5 million over the four-day weekend, and ended with a total of $10.8 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--September 3, 2004: As Hero stayed in first over Labor Day weekend, with second place Without a Paddle and third place Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid flipping slots, four new movies opened, none of them well-received by critics or audiences. The top newcomver in 4th was Paparazzi, a thriller starring Cole Hauser as a Hollywood superstar who gets violent revenge against the paparazzi responsible for putting his son in a coma. The film was produced by Mel Gibson, who has a cameo. As this was still a couple of years before his true colors came out, audiences and critics were surprised at how vicious the film was. The film made $7.9 million over the four-day weekend, finishing with $15.7 million. At 6th, Josh Hartnett starred in the confusing sounding thriller Wicker Park, about a man still mourning a lost love who finds himself increasingly intrigued by a new woman he has met, who has secrets of her own. A remake of a well-regarded French drama, the American version mostly attracted yawns from critics and opened to $6.8 million, before finally parking at $13 million. The first failed Oscar bait of awards season, Vanity Fair, fizzled in 8th place. The adaption of William Thackeray's 1848 novel, starring Reece Witherspoon as ambitious social climber Becky Sharp, directed by Mira Nair, got mixed reviews and indifferent audiences, which, for a film released in early September, would be the kiss of death in terms of award notice. It made only $6.3 million its opening weekend and finished its run with $16.1 million, failing to pick up any Oscar nominations, not even for costumes or sets. In 9th was the comedy The Cookout, which starred college basketball star-turned-rapper-turned-actor Quran Pender as an NBA superstar whose family cookout gets invaded by various neighbors and hanger-ons. Critics hated the film, and audiences weren't much interested either, as it opened to $6.2 million over the weekend, and topped out at $11.8 million. What happened to Pender after this, his one starring role, would make a much more interesting movie than any of these four dogs.
Twenty Years Ago--September 3, 1999: The Sixth Sense won Labor Day, just as it had won the previous four weekends, and holdovers Runaway Bride, The 13th Warrior, Bowfinger, and The Thomas Crown Affair rounded out the Top 5. Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr's reputation for picking really bad projects to be in really began in earnest thanks to the weekend's highest debut, in 6th, Chill Factor. The thriller starred Gooding and Skeet Ulrich as two ordinary guys who are charged with keeping a bomb that will explode if it gets above 50 degrees Fahrenheit cold. The rather obvious Speed ripoff got the cold shoulder from both critics and audiences, as the film only made $5.9 million over the four-day weekend, and finished well short of $50 million, earning just $11.3 million. Debuting outside the Top 10 was Outside Providence, a dramady written and produced, but not directed, by the Farrelly Brothers, who were coming off of There's Something About Mary. There wasn't something about this film, which starred Shawn Hatosy as a troubled teenager and Alec Baldwin as his gruff dad, to attract audiences, as it opened in 11th with $3.4 million and ended its run inside $10 million, only grossing $7.3 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--September 9, 1994: Not too many people went to the movies the weekend after Labor Day, and the ones that did largely stuck to the tried and true, especially Forrest Gump, which won its 10th weekend of release. There were two newcomers that had several things in common. They both starred Joanne Whalley-Kilmer (who would drop the second half of her last name when she divorced Val in 1996), they both had solid casts, and they were both big flops. The higher grossing of the two was Trial By Jury, which, in a sign to how weak the overall weekend was, opened in fourth despite only making $2.9 million. The courtroom thriller starred Whalley-Kilmer as a juror for the trial of a mob boss (Armand Assante) who is threatened by said boss's enforcer (William Hurt) vote not guilty or else (if that plot sounds familiar even though you're sure you've never seen this before, that's probably because it was recycled only a year and a half later into The Juror, with Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin in the Whalley-Kilmer and Hurt roles). Critics judged the film guilty, and audiences sentenced it to only $7 million final gross. Meanwhile, way down in #14, the other Whalley-Kilmer release, A Good Man in Africa, proved to be a bad booking in theaters A comedy about bad behavior among the diplomats and leaders of a West African nation, the film wasted a good cast including Sean Connery, John Lithgow, Louis Gossett, Jr., and Diana Rigg. It opened to a meager $1.1 million, and ended its run with $2.3 million. In between was the only new release not featuring Whalley-Kilmer, The Next Karate Kid. As the title implied, Ralph Macchio is nowhere to be found, replaced by future two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank. Pat Morita did return as Mr. Miyagi, however. Audiences didn't warm to the new Kid, as the film opened in 7th with $2.6 million and ultimately ended up making only $8.9 million.
Thirty Years Ago--September 8, 1989: While the four-week-old Uncle Buck and six-week-old Parenthood continued to dominate the post-Labor Day movie landscape, one low-budget action film did open surprisingly decently. Belgian martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme had been starring in a series of increasingly popular violent action flicks, and his latest, Kickboxer, opened well at $4.1 million. The drama, where Van Damme has to avenge his brother by fighting the fearsome Thai fighter who paralyzed him, was essentially a riff on the plot of Rocky IV (which was itself cobbled together from numerous previous films). Critics weren't impressed, but the film found an audience, ultimately grossing $14.7 million, which was Van Damme's highest gross to date.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--September 7, 1984: Hollywood fully took the week after Labor Day off, as Tightrope and Ghostbusters stayed at the top of the charts. The only new release of any kind was The Warrior and the Sorceress, a fantasy riff on Kurosawa's Yojimbo, with a lot more boobs. The film opened to only $0.6 million, but stuck around long enough to eventually gross $2.9 million.
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