It has been the talk of the movie world for the past week or so, but all the buzz and rave reviews in the world could only do so much for “Blade Runner 2049,” which topped the box office, but with some rather underwhelming numbers.
Denis Villeneuve‘s sequel earned a rather tepid $31 million from over 4000 screens in North America. So, it wasn’t for lack of availability that the figures are so small. Instead, I’d chalk up this $150 million followup to some serious miscalculation. While Ridley Scott‘s 1982 original is a science-fiction masterpiece, it was never “Star Wars” sized, and the fandom for the movie has always been rather niche. Certainly, the stature of the film has rightfully grown in the decades since its release, but again, it’s not a four-quadrant property. The efforts by Warner Bros. and Alcon to do that — albeit, with an R-rated picture — were admirable, but even with Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling getting top billing, moviegoers simply weren’t compelled. Again, it was likely a very small, core audience with genuine nostalgia for “Blade Runner,” while most moviegoers simply weren’t compelled.
There are some silver linings to be had, however, with Villeneuve scoring the best opening weekend figure of his career. The quality of the movie is not in question, so he’ll be just fine. Same goes for Gosling who also sees the best numbers of his filmography yet. And while Scott has already talked about franchising “Blade Runner,” maybe the ‘2049’ numbers this weekend will spare us another ill-conceived cinematic universe.
Elsewhere, not too many people scaled “The Mountains Between Us” with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba, with the adventure romance only chalking up $10 million. 20th Century Fox was never all that confident about the movie, pulling its advance press screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, and kinda giving up on it altogether. So, no big shock here.
Speaking of giving up, Lionsgate didn’t do much for “My Little Pony,” with the movie galloping to a woeful $8 million. I guess even the bronies couldn’t get excited about this.
In box office milestones, “It” has gone off the charts. The picture has grossed $304 million domestically and a whopping $603 million after five weeks. When was the last time a horror franchise did those kinds of numbers? Possibly never. Expect sequels, prequels, spin-offs and all that. Give it a week and “It” will have cracked the top ten highest grossing movies of 2017 globally. Lagging behind before it opened in China and Japan, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is closing in on $900 million and is the fourth highest grossing film of the year. And then there’s the Chinese movie you haven’t heard of, “Wolf Warrior 2,” co-starring Frank Grillo. It’s now the fifth highest grossing film of the year and has hit the $870 million mark. It’s the highest grossing film in China by a long distance and probably will remain unchallenged for years. Or at least until “Wolf Warrior 3.”
At the arthouse, “The Florida Project” got off to a strong start, tallying $153,342 from four screens for a per screen average of $38,336.
1. “Blade Runner 2049” — $31.5 million
2. “The Mountain Between Us” — $10.1 million
3. “It” — $9.6 million ($304 mil.)
4. “My Little Pony: The Movie” — $8.8 million
5. “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” — $8.1 million ($79.9 mil.)
6. “American Made” — $8 million ($30.4 mil.)
7. “The Lego Ninjago Movie” — $6.7 million ($43.8 mil.)
8. “Victoria and Abdul” — $4.1 million ($5.9 mil)
9. “Flatliners” — $3.8 million ($12.3 mil.)
10. “Battle Of The Sexes” — $2.4 million ($7.6 mil.)