If there is one lesson to be learned from the box office this week, it’s that the pull of nostalgia can be quite lucrative…unless it’s “CHIPS.”
Disney‘s “Beauty And The Beast” continued its commanding hold at the multiplex, spending the second straight week on top of the box office with $88 million domestic, and added another $119 million overseas. This brings the global total after two weeks to $690 million, and it looks like $1 billion worldwide is simply an inevitability at this point. And while Sean Bailey of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has said there are no sequel plans, the studio is open to spinoffs and prequels based on the property, and you can bet those meetings will start happening, if they haven’t already.
READ MORE: ‘Beauty And The Beast’ Is An Uninspired Monstrosity Of Bombast & Melodrama [Review]
Lionsgate will be popping the champagne as “Power Rangers” found its audience and then some with the live-action reboot of the cornball TV show and animated series taking in a surprising $40 million. The figure is more than the entire $38.1 million haul “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie” earned during its run in 1995, and this is despite mostly bad reviews for the movie too. The threat of five more sequels has already been tabled, and it’s almost certain we’ll be getting at least one more based on these figures. No one can say “we didn’t ask for it,” because clearly, a significant amount of moviegoers did want to see this colorful new group of teen superheroes on the big screen.
Despite bringing together Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, the sci-fi “Life” barely raised a pulse with $12.6 million. The $58 million budgeted movie is gonna leave a mark on the Sony balance book, and the studio must be doubly pained that their SXSW launch for the movie didn’t register. Surprisingly, the opening number is pretty much in line with what Gyllenhaal pulls in for non-blockbusters, and is actually better than the launch figures for “Nightcrawler” and “Love And Other Drugs.” For Reynolds, this shows that despite having a big brand in “Deadpool” under his belt, it won’t automatically translate to success in other pictures.
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Warner Bros. will be asking some hard questions about who thought it was a good idea to give Dax Shepard the keys to the “CHIPS,” letting him write, direct, and star in the effort. The results speak for themselves, as the woefully reviewed R-rated movie pulled in an anemic $7.6 million. There’s no silver lining here. It’s a disastrous result for the $25 million-budgeted movie, and definitely a strong argument that just because something is R-rated doesn’t mean it’s any good, nor can you just apply the “21 Jump Street” approach to any property and expect the same results without bringing some actual bite and cleverness to the proceedings.
In limited release, “Wilson” starring Woody Harrelson pulled in a rather lackluster $330,000 on over 300 screens, with a pretty paltry $1,065 per screen average. Meanwhile, jazz doc “I Called Him Morgan” played strongly on a single screen, tallying $14,154.
1. “Beauty And The Beast” — $88.3 million ($316.9 mil.)
2. “Power Rangers” — $40.5 million
3. “Kong: Skull Island” — $14.4 million ($133.5 mil.)
4. “Life” — $12.6 million
5. “Logan” — $10.1 million ($201.4 mil.)
6. “Get Out” — $8.6 million ($147.4 mil.)
7. “Chips” — $7.6 million
8. “The Shack” — $3.7 million ($49 mil.)
9. “The Lego Batman Movie” — $1.9 million ($170.8 mil.)
10. “The Belko Experiment” — $1.8 million ($7.5 mil.)
