"Argylle" Socked By Super Bowl

 On Super Bowl Weekend, Argylle didn't so much as win as not lose, while Lisa Frankenstein is DOA.

(I should be caught up by next week)

A record 202 million people watched the Super Bowl Sunday night on one of the various ways to watch the game.  Those 202 million witnessed a number of celebrity-stuffed commercials and a football game that, after a rather dull first half, became quite exciting after halftime, as the Kansas City Chiefs came back to beat the San Francisco 49ers in overtime.  CBS's cameras made sure to catch nearly every reaction of Taylor Swift, who is famously dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.  Her luxury box was stuffed with numerous Swifts, Kelces, and the supercouple's friends, leading to the question--were there more people in Swift's box than attended the movies this weekend?  At the very least, the population of Swift's box probably outnumbered the number of people watching the vast majority of movie screenings over the weekend.

"Winning", to use the term loosely, was Apple's $200 million flop Argylle, which took in $6.3 million, or less than Mean Girls made as the #1 movie two weeks ago, when it was already the lowest-grossing #1 since Top Gun: Maverick over Labor Day 2022.  The spy comedy has a ten-day total of $28.6 million, and seems likely to finish under $40 million.  Between this and the disappointing fall runs of the equally expensive Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon, don't be surprised if Apple shies away from releasing many more movies into theaters.

At least Argylle has a pulse, as faint as it might be.  Lisa Frankenstein couldn't even claim that.  The horror romantic comedy stumbled out of the grave with a meager $3.7 million, only a few hundred thousand more than I.S.S. made last month, even though Lisa arrived with far more hype.  For whatever reason, the teen girls who had turned out to see Mean Girls couldn't be bothered this time around.  Expect Lisa to shuffle to a final gross under $10 million.

Putting together a nicely buzzed about run, The Beekeeper stays in the Top 3 for the 5th weekend in a row, as the Jason Statham vehicle picked up another $3.4 million, for a total of $54.7 million.  The film should finish above $60 million and has an outside chance of hitting $70 million.

The holiday season's biggest hit, Wonka, brought in another $3.1 million for a total of $205.2 million.  The other long-running family holiday hit, Migration, earned $2.9 million for a total of $110.1 million.

The first three episodes of the 4th season of the Christian streaming drama The Chosen held up very poorly, as it fell to $2.8 million.  Its eleven-day total is $12.3 million, which to be fair, is quite good for several episodes of a TV series.  These episodes will be replaced by the next batch of episodes this weekend.

Surprise hit romcom Anyone But You added a number of theaters this weekend, in preparation for Valentine's Day, but the film still slipped from last weekend, earning $2.7 million for a total of $80.1 million, a total that must have seemed like a pipe dream after it's mediocre Christmas weekend opening.  Only two weeks removed from its third straight weekend on top, Mean Girls has fallen all the way to eighth, earning $1.9 million for a total of $69.2 million.

Rounding out the Top 10, Oscar nominees American Fiction and Poor Things took in $1.3 million and $1.1 million, respectively.  Their totals stand at $17.3 million and $30.3 million.

Outside the Top 10, the stone age horror thriller Out of Darkness, which has been floating around for a year and a half at various film festivals, had a mostly ignored semi-wide release, finishing just under $1 million.   At least it did better than the weekend's two re-releases, Turning Red and Dune, both of which finished with just under $0.6 million.  And they each did better than the second weekend of French animated movie Jungle Bunch: Operation Meltdown, which could only put together a ten-day total of $0.7 million.

With Valentine's Day on Wednesday, this weekend's two new films arrive two days early.  Madame Web is Sony's latest effort to try to extend their rights to Spider-Man into a full cinematic universe (inside that other cinematic universe).  This one stars Dakota Johnson as the titular character, a paramedic who develops the ability to see several seconds into the future, and uses that to protect her newfound friends, including Anyone But You's Sydney Sweeney.  Sony hit a home run with the Venom films and struck out badly with Morbius.  We'll see where this one ranks.  Also arriving is Bob Marley: One Love, a biopic of the legendary Reggie singer, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and his wife Rita played by Lashana Lynch.  In addition, episodes 4-6 of The Chosen also begin playing this weekend.  We're going to have a new #1, but which film will it be?  Will Madame Web spin her way to the top?  Or will audiences show love to Bob Marley?  We'll find out next week.