The box office battle between astronaut Brad Pitt, a jacked senior citizen killing machine, and a polite British TV series spinoff film has ended and not only is there a clear winner, but “Downton Abbey” trounced the competition, making Stallone and Pitt kneel before Maggie Smith.
In its first weekend, the “Downton Abbey” film easily won the weekend with an incredible opening of $31 million. In the fall, this is a domestic opening normally reserved for blockbusters and A-lister films. Instead, the period film about people preparing for the arrival of royalty won the weekend in a competition that pit it against two of the biggest names ever to grace a movie screen. Cheers to writer/creator Julian Fellowes and director Michael Engler.
To be fair, it’s not like “Downton Abbey” came into the weekend as some sort of dark horse. Based on a TV series that quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, the film served as a fan-service-y end to a story that has been going for years. You know, basically “Downton Abbey” is the BBC equivalent of “Avengers: Endgame,” minus the capes and superpowers and with 100% more Maggie Smith.
The British film currently sits at a very respectable $62 million worldwide, proving that this film is having no issue finding an audience. An audience that isn’t scared to go out to the theater to enjoy a series that they usually watched in the comfort of their home. And those that went out to enjoy “Downton Abbey” surely did have fun, with a CinemaScore of ‘A,’ proving that this could be the type of film that sticks around for weeks to come, as the older demographic of fans that love this sort of thing aren’t the type that usually rush out to theaters opening weekend.
Now, in the wake of the British film’s domination, Brad Pitt debuted his latest big-screen epic, “Ad Astra.” Directed by James Gray, the space adventure earned a decent $19.2 million in its first three days domestically. Considering the budget (reports have this film’s cost hovering around summer blockbuster range), this isn’t a huge win for Fox Searchlight, who would have likely hoped that Pitt’s name along would propel it to #1. However, considering the marketing had people believe this was “Interstellar 2” instead of the Kubrick-ian space drama it actually is, this total isn’t terrible, at all.
Normally, when a marketing department paints a heavy drama as something more than it is, and in this case, “Ad Astra” was positioned as a Christopher Nolan-esque epic action film, the CinemaScore will reflect badly. Luckily, for Brad Pitt and his Plan B production company, the CinemaScore for “Ad Astra” is a ‘B-.’ For normal films, this would be a kiss of death, as anything below ‘B’ is normally the sign of terrible word of mouth. However, one could spin this score as a sign that people were likely taken aback by the actual film, but enjoyed it enough to not completely feel misled. Or maybe, this is just me trying to justify why a really, really great film, with beautiful cinematography, music, acting, and story would somehow get a lower audience score and almost get beaten at the box office by “Rambo: Last Blood.”
That’s right, the latest (and supposedly last) ‘Rambo’ film was eeked out by “Ad Astra,” as the Sylvester Stallone-led action film earned $19 million in its first three days. As much as it pains me to say this (because trust me, I didn’t like the film…at all), ‘Last Blood’ has all the early signs of another hit sequel for Stallone, who just loves to milk his franchises dry. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 29%, you would think this film would falter at the box office. But there is clearly an audience for extreme jingoism (and probable racism), as the CinemaScore for ‘Rambo’ came in at a ‘B.’ Now, with a budget of $50 million (Seriously? Where did this money go?), an opening weekend of $19 million is good, but not great. For the film to recoup its money, it will have to stick around for a few more strong weekends and have a decent overseas run. But hey, my clear bias can only trash a movie for so long, as there’s really nothing bad to report about this debut.
Compared to the previous “Rambo” film, which debuted in 2008, ‘Last Blood’ is proving that sometimes taking a bit of a break isn’t a bad thing. The self-titled “Rambo” opened more than a decade ago with $18.2 million. However, that film quickly sputtered out and ended its domestic run with only $43 million, and only $53 million worldwide. So, with that being said, ‘Last Blood’ needs to be more on par with the franchise’s ‘80s films if it hopes to be a major win for the Stallone.
With the debuts out of the way, it’s important to cover the second weekend of the two big films from the previous frame — “The Goldfinch” and “Hustlers.” Let’s start with the good news.
The Jennifer Lopez-led “Hustlers” fell a respectable -49% and earned a pretty great $17 million this weekend. After 10 days, the $20 million-budgeted film currently sits at $63 million domestically. This is a huge win for STX and writer-director Lorene Scafaria. After the film’s ‘B-’ CinemaScore, it was unsure whether or not word-of-mouth on the exotic dancer crime film would be good enough to sustain the coming weeks. Well, this second weekend total clearly points to audiences still being excited to check the film out. This also bodes well for Jennifer Lopez and her awards contention, as it appears that “Hustlers” will be a breakout hit this season.
Now, just flip all those adjectives and turn them into negatives and you have the news for “The Goldfinch.” After a terrible debut last weekend, the mid-budget drama starring Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman not only did even worse in its second weekend but actually somehow is more embarrassing than the previous frame.
In its second weekend, “The Goldfinch” earned a paltry $770,000, dropping it from the top 10 (#15 to be precise) and signaled a weekend-to-weekend drop of -71.3%. Ouch. It would appear that the ‘B’ CinemaScore that the film earned last weekend isn’t going to translate to any word-of-mouth, at all. The film will likely be out of most theaters in the next couple of weeks and will be quickly forgotten. While there are always winners and losers at the box office, when you have a film like “The Goldfinch,” with its A-list cast, best-selling source material, incredible crew (Roger Deakins behind the camera, folks!), and big festival debut, a box office run like this is nothing short of astonishing. Astonishingly bad, obviously.
As for the limited release sector, the big winner this weekend was the debut of “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” with a per-theater-average of $10,591. Not a huge opening for the documentary, at all. However, in a season packed with prestige pictures, it’s going to be harder and harder for limited-release films that don’t have major buzz to score big.
READ MORE: Oscars: ‘Hustlers,’ ‘Knives Out’ & Joaquin Phoenix Unexpectedly Pop At TIFF
For fans of this website, next weekend is a bit of a breather, as the only major opening is the animated children’s film “Abominable.” Sure, it’s opening in approximately 4,100 theaters, but considering the lack of excitement surrounding the film, a massive opening isn’t likely. Though, with a severe lack of kid-friendly films over the last few weeks, perhaps Universal can sneak in and surprise us all. Otherwise, the real story comes in two weeks with “Joker.” And there will surely be plenty to cover when that film arrives in theaters. Oh boy.
Here’s the entire domestic top 10 for September 20 to September 22:
1. Downton Abbey – $31M (Debut)
2. Ad Astra – $19.2M (Debut)
3. Rambo: Last Blood – $19M (Debut)
4. It: Chapter Two – $17.2M ($179M Overall)
5. Hustlers – $17M ($63M)
6. The Lion King – $2.6M ($538M)
7. Good Boys – $2.5M ($77M)
8. Angel Has Fallen – $2.4M ($65M)
9. Overcomer – $1.5M ($32M)
10. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw – $1.46M ($171M)