Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 07 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
When a giant movie drops, and doesn’t flop, and seems to be the only movie at the box office that anybody is talking about, it starts to warp your sense of what happens in FML. You would think that would mean it’s the thing to play in its debut week, even if it is split into 3 days. One of those days is going to land you pretty high on its own merit, even if it doesn’t get the Best Performer bonus.
Well, the highest grossing cineplex I could find to feature The Fate of the Furious was number 2134. So, needless to say, it was not our winner this week. Instead, the boy wonder Boss Baby managed to anchor it’s second straight perfect cineplex on the back of a $16 million dollar take. It may be down $10 million from Week 06, but it was still enough to take that $2 million dollar bonus to the bank.
Even though this was the slimmest of margins of victory over The Case for Christ, that film was completely blanked in the perfect cineplex. Instead, Smurfs: The Lost Village joined two screens of Get Out and one of Life to give that big $5 million bump for the week.
And, get ready to say goodbye to Life and a bunch of other films, as we enter Week 08: The Week Of The New Releases You Never Heard Of.
But first, in our War Starts at Midnight League, we have some big moving and shaking going on. Jon’s Cineplex takes a big hit, as banking on Friday’s The Fate of the Furious dropped him down from 1st to 13th. In his wake, we have STEVE: The Lost FMLer taking over as our reigning leader, but followed so very closely by Billion Dollar Cineplex. A mere $50k separates them, and this season is shaping up to be a real dogfight. It’s too bad Rock Dog wasn’t still in FML or I could make some good jokes.
Actually, it’s probably good that Rock Dog is nowhere to be found except as a reference in this article, and, eventually, as a Home Video Hero segment with Drew Allen.
WEEK 08 PREDICTIONS
So, what do you even try to play in Week 08? Well, we should call it by it’s new name: The Week Of The New Releases You Never Heard Of. I’ll give you the short version and say I’m going to try really hard to avoid all of these movies, but I’ll still give you a little input on each one.
- Unforgettable ($167) – While Chris thinks this may do good at the box office, I have no faith in this film. I tried to find the poster to show how off-center Katherine Heigl’s name was, and the movie isn’t even in the first results on image search. Let’s just leave it at that.
- Born in China ($103) – A Disneynature film with 87% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, this may be a sleeper for a really good week. I just think it’s going to be hard to compete against The Fate of the Furious, although you could make a case that this has no competition in it’s segment. It’s your call.
- The Lost City of Z ($55) – A certified fresh exploration epic, this picture may be the one film from this week that lasts for a little while. In only 750 theaters, it makes a tough play at $55, especially when Free Fire is cheaper and more widespread.
- Free Fire ($54) – This looks like such a fun movie, and with good reviews, it looks like A24 has managed to score a wider release than was promised. At over 1,000 screens, this would be the one new release that could sneak into your cineplex. Or, could land all over my cineplex…
- Phoenix Forgotten ($51) – This found footage horror film in in 1,578 theaters. Will this lose out some viewers to Unforgettable? I say no, but I also don’t think a movie that I’ve never seen an ad for is going to magically jump up to best performer. Then again, I have been wrong before.
- The Promise ($47) – How did this get 2,251 theater count? The reviews are abysmal, and it looks from the cast and director like they all must have flopped to have this historical drama land in April. There’s a chance that from theater count alone this proves your best value, but play at your own very risky risk.
I don’t know where that leaves us, but I do know where it leaves me. I’m going to lean heavy on The Fast and the Furious as an anchor, and I’m going to fill it out with Free Fire. Then, just to spend the rest of my money, I’m going Get Out / The Case for Christ.
If you trust any of the other new releases, good luck, and may God be with you.
Think another new release deserves a second look? Tell me about it on Twitter @jakerg23.