After six horror movie had opened and, to various degrees, flopped, in 8 weeks, the prospects of a seventh in weekend number 9 didn't seem any better. Sure, this one starred Elisabeth Moss, but there had been good actors in many of the others. Plus, this one seemed to not only have a warmed-over storyline, but was actually a rescue project, being the remains of what had been intended to be a big-budgeted film starring Johnny Depp, as part of the quickly defunct Dark Universe series of films.
But The Invisible Man had something that the other six titles didn't have--strong reviews. Blumhouse, which realized that Leigh Whannell's thriller was considerably better than say, their own Fantasy Island, made sure critics got to see the film early and made sure they could get their reviews out well before opening day. The result was a hefty Rotten Tomatoes score of 91%, which, along with a weekend that was inexplicably left wide open, led to a strong opening of $28.2 million, or more than the other six horror titles have made so far in their entire runs. Since horror movies tend to fade quickly, Invisible will likely fall short of $100 million, but even a final gross above $60 million would ensure a huge profit for this film, which cost all of $9 million to make.
Sonic the Hedgehog cost considerably more than $9 million, but its budget is still pretty reasonable given that it's a CGI-filled extravaganza with at least one expensive star in the cast. So, once both the domestic and international grosses are totally in, even if the latter ends up not including China, where theaters remained closed, Sonic should be nicely profitable itself. In its third weekend, the action comedy slipped out of the top spot, but still brought in $16.3 million for second, bringing its domestic total to $128.6 million. It should pass Pokemon Detective Pikachu in the next week or two to become the highest-grossing video game derived film ever.
For reasons that no one has quite been able to explain, The Call of the Wild cost $135 million, which means that being a moderate success at the box office isn't anywhere near good enough. Wild took in $13.4 million to bring its 10-day total to $46 million. That would be perfectly fine if the film had a reasonable budget, but like fellow CGI animal family film Dolittle, a final gross between $70 and $80 million will mean tens of millions of dollars of losses for the film.
Last year, Funmation, one of the leading importers of anime for the North American market, had a surprise success with Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Realizing that fans of anime TV shows will turn out to see the feature film version, even with little in the way of promotion, Funmation gave a wide release to My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. Fans of the popular anime, about the students at a school full of prospective superheroes, did turn out, as My Hero made $5.9 over the weekend and $9.2 million since it opened on Wednesday. That's not as good as Broly did, but Academia seems certain to earn at least $20 million domestically, which will still make it one of the most successful non-Pokemon anime titles in the North American market.
Bad Boys For Life continues its impressive run, taking in another $4.4 million to bring its total to $197.4 million. It will likely hit the $200 million mark by next weekend. Birds Of Prey (And the Subtitle I Really Don't Care About) continues to limp, taking in $4.1 million for a total of $78.8 million. If it fails to top $100 million (as is looking increasingly likely), it will be the first live-action movie based on a mainstream DC character to fail to do so since Jonah Hex and the first involving someone with super powers since Constantine in 2005.
After last week's impressive performance in limited release, Impractical Jokers: The Movie jumped to wide release this week. Alas, like many movies that do well in limited, the audiences didn't follow. It took in $3.6 million for a ten-day total of $6.8 million.
1917 likely took its final Top 10 bow, taking in $2.8 million for a total of $155.9 million. Two horror flops (relatively speaking, since they were both really cheap to produce), Brahms: The Boy II and Fantasy Island, rounded out the top 10, with the former making $2.6 million for a ten-day total of $9.8 million and the latter making $2.3 million for a total of $24.1 million.
There are two new films going wide and one expansion. By far the bigger of the two openings, and a certain #1 next weekend, is Onward, the latest from Pixar. The MCUs Peters--Parker and Quill--aka Tom Holland and Chris Pratt--voice elf brothers, both nerds in different ways, who are on a quest to bring their long-dead father alive. Given its March opening, the fact its an original, and some reviews that are less than spectacular, at least for Pixar, Onward isn't likely to open huge, but should still score at least $50 million for the weekend. This is Disney's first film of the year, but unlike last year, when they were partially or completely responsible for the year's top 8 movies, expect considerably less world domination by Mickey and friends this year.
Also opening wide is The Way Back, a drama starring Ben Afflick as an alcoholic former high school basketball star who gets hired as the new coach at his alma mater. This one seems unlikely to open to more than $10 million. Finally, there is the expansion of Emma. This film is a remake of the 1995 high school classic Clueless set in early 19th century England. Anya Taylor-Joy plays Cher, who, as the title suggest, is renamed Emma in this version. If this is a success, imagine what they could do with other 90s set high school comedies. Imagine, say, 10 Things I Hate About You set in 16th century Italy, or She's All That set in England before WWI. Maybe they could even turn it into a musical!
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