The holiday movie season is in full swing, but there's just one problem: apparently, no one informed the nation's moviegoers that the holiday movie season has even started.
Midway was the surprise box office champion this weekend, though it would be a mistake to label the victory of Roland Emmerich's answer to Dunkirk any kind of triumph. It won basically by default, as it did about as expected while the competition did much worse than expected. Midway's $17.9 million is both the worst total for a #1 movie since Angel Has Fallen's second weekend over Labor Day and the worst total for a film debuting at #1 since Jigsaw more than two years ago. That said, Midway is the type of movie whose audience might not rush out and see it right away, and it could play well through at least Thanksgiving weekend. A final gross north of $50 million seems unlikely, but if word of mouth is stronger than the reviews, that is not out of the question.
Apparently hitting the snooze button this weekend was Doctor Sleep, which as noted above, finished at least $10 million below expectations, opening to $14.1 million. The marketing department did everything short of putting footage of Jack Nicholson yelling "Here's Johnny!" in the trailer to hype up the connection to The Shining, but it turns out that not that many people were all that interested in finding out how Danny Torrance was doing 40 years later. The Shining is estimated to have made around $44 million in 1980. With the dropoff that most horror movies get, Doctor Sleep will be lucky if it gets within $10 million of that total.
Opening a bit better than expected in third is the family comedy Playing With Fire, in which John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, John Leguizamo, and Judy Greer all hopefully cashed nice big checks to play a firefighting unit that has to babysit three precocious girls. The comedy grossed $12.7 million and has a good chance to pull off another decent weekend before singing Norwegian sisters arrive to douse the fire with ice.
Releasing a Christmas movie this early in November is always a risky prospect (for every Santa Clause or Elf, there are numerous Fred Clauses or Nutcracker and the Four Realms), and Last Christmas was also probably hurt by the widespread coverage that its twist got right before opening. Still, its surprising that the romcom was only able to pull in $11.4 million. What might help is that, save for December horror flick Black Christmas, there are no other Christmas-specific movies out this holidays season, which might give Last Christmas some legs. I'd be more confident if it was, say, 2003, when Love Actually was able to overcome an even worse opening (admittedly, on a fraction of the number of screens Last Christmas has) to finish with nearly $60 million, though.
Its title proving grimly prophetic, Terminator: Dark Fate slipped from first to fifth with a gross of $10.8 million, putting its ten-day at $48.5 million. It is now more than $20 million behind where Terminator: Genisys was at the end of its second weekend. At this point, Dark Fate is looking at a final fate of under $75 million.
After 5 weeks in the Top 3, the onslaught of new releases has sent Joker falling to sixth, with $9.2 million. The film has now grossed $313.5 million and still looks to be heading to a final gross between $330 and $340 million. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil took in $8.4 million for a total of $97.7 million. It should pass $100 million in the next few days.
Harriet held up decently in its second weekend, earning $7.4 million for a ten-day total of $23.6 million. It looks to be heading over $30 million at a minimum. Zombieland: Double Tap brought in $4.3 million for a total of $66.6 million, as its looking very likely to finish within a few million of what the first one brought in. Rounding out the Top 10, The Addams Family took in $4.2 million to bring its total to $91.4 million.
Three new films go wide this week, at least two of which should, in theory, have no trouble finishing at 1 and 2. Likely heading for a weekend win is Ford v. Ferrari, a dramatization of the effort by Ford Motors to build a racecar that could beat a Ferrari at the Le Mans race in 1966, with Matt Damon as the designer and Christian Bale as the driver. Excellent reviews and strong Oscar buzz should send this to an opening above $30 million. Charlie's Angels is an effort to reboot the franchise, which other than a short-lived TV revival, has been on ice since the 2003 sequel with Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz flopped. Elizabeth Banks directs and co-stars, with Kristen Stewart as the only new Angel familiar to most viewers. Reviews are better than expected, but buzz has been quiet. Also surprisingly quiet is the buzz on The Good Liar, which stars Ian McKellon as an aging conman whose new mark is a wealthy widow played by Helen Mirren. But could he actually be falling for her for real? And is she truly on the up-and-up? On paper, this thriller, directed by Bill Condon, re-teaming with McKellan for the fourth time (after Gods and Monsters, Mr. Holmes, and Beauty and the Beast), should be an Oscar contender. Its apparently not, though, as reviews are about as good as the ones for Charlie's Angels. We'll see if Ford can roar to the top, if Charlie can surprise, or if Midway manages to repeat next weekend.
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