While the "Fantastic Four" fallout continues with more chatter about what really went on behind the scenes circulating, the bottom line is that, come Monday morning, some executives at Fox are going to have some serious explaining to do. The superhero movie opened with an abysmal $26.2 million, far below optimistic projections that placed the movie between $40-50 million. Internationally, it didn’t do much better either, taking in another $34.1 million. You have to go back to Sony‘s $22.1 million bow for "Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance" for the last Marvel-branded film to debut so poorly, and that film certainly wasn’t as expensive, or weighted with franchise expectations, as "Fantastic Four." But for now, Fox is remaining brave in the face in of failure.
"While we’re disappointed, we remain committed to these characters and we have a lot to look forward to in our Marvel universe," Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson told THR. What that actually means for the sequel, currently dated for a summer 2017 release, isn’t certain, but if Fox does push ahead, they will have a massive hill to climb. The long-running sentiment has been that the studio had a very low bar to clear in making a movie that would be worse than its 2005 and 2007 predecessors. But it seems Fox tripped on that bar and faceplanted pretty hard. It’s going to be interesting to see how they navigate things from here.
As a result, Paramount was able to steal the top spot at the box office with "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" netting $29.4 million. The film has now crossed $100 million domestic, marking Tom Cruise‘s best box office at home since "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" in 2011. Even better, the picture grabbed another $65.5 million overseas, and is expected to be Cruise’s biggest hit ever, with over $700 million worldwide looking likely.
Elsewhere, STX will be happy with the $12 million haul for Joel Edgerton‘s low-budget thriller "The Gift," which was aided by some very good reviews. While Jonathan Demme‘s "Ricki And The Flash" had a similar screen average as "The Gift," it opened in a smaller number of theaters, earning a quiet $7 million, marking the lowest opening for a Meryl Streep film since 2007’s "Lions For Lambs."
While parents were given the option to take the kids to "Shaun The Sheep," most didn’t bother, as Lionsgate‘s animated movie didn’t even land in the top ten, with just $4 million in its pocket, and $5.5 million total since it opened on Wednesday.
1. “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” – $29.4 million ($108.6 mil.)
2. “Fantastic Four” – $26.2 million
3. “The Gift” — $12 million
4. “Vacation” — $9.1 million ($37.3 mil.)
5. “Ant-Man” – $7.8 million ($147.4 mil.)
6. “Minions” – $7.4 million ($302.7 mil.)
7. “Ricki And The Flash” – $7 million
8. “Trainwreck” – $6.3 million ($91.1 mil.)
9. “Pixels” – $5.4 million ($57.6 mil.)
10. “Southpaw” – $4.7 million ($40.7 mil.)