Each week Jacob recaps the weekend box office and the winners and losers in the Midnight Warrior Fantasy Movie League.
WEEK 06 BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN
I came so close to giving out great advice last week. I nailed the Best Performer in Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big SIck, and I got half of the Spider-man: Homecoming anchor right. I only missed thinking Saturday + The Big Sick would net more than Friday + Pirates of the Caribbean. All in all, I call that a victory in prediction.
My main flaw was not realizing that Friday’s Spider-man was going to include Thursday previews of $15.4 million, which was much more than I expected. That’s what I get for waiting until Sunday morning to see the movie myself and not realizing on Thursday night how massive of a hit the film would prove to be.
For a micro-review, I’ll just say I’m updating my villain list to Loki, Vulture, Ego, and in that order. Note: I don’t consider Bucky to be a villain or he would be in the mix. This movie is better than it has any right to be, and will end up being the definitive on-screen portrayal of this New York icon for the next few generations. Well, until the face under the suit is Miles Morales.
As for the Midnight Warrior league, we find one cineplex being the first repeat winner of the league, and it’s not Lacy or Phil. No, cineplex I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom! took the prize, nailing the Perfect Cineplex and beating the runner-ups by $1,245 plus the $5 million bonus. According to the Chatter, this was the closest week in FML history.
On the losing end of the down-to-the-wire Perfect Cineplex race were league leading I Smell Cineplex and Candy and yours truly with Tanking The Network. The former stretches out her lead over School of Rock to almost $40 million, while the latter continues to claw his way back up the rankings chart, finding himself at 6th. This early in the year, though, it still really is anybody’s league. Unless you’re Lacy or Phil, it’s mostly just your league to run away with.
WEEK 07 PREDICTIONS
Enjoy summer! Finally, we have just a standard opening weekend with nothing weird going on. When the seasons change you’re going to long for weekends like this. Let’s do a rundown of this week’s new releases before I guess wildly at what the Perfect Cineplex might be.
- War for the Planet of the Apes ($705) – Other people are down on this film, but I’m banking on it this week. It may be expensive, but if preview numbers are good, we’re looking at a bonafide hit. If not, it will be a must-play next week, as word of mouth will probably be incredible on this one. I haven’t seen the second entry in this series and even I’m itching for a way to get out and see this one this week. I’m trusting it if the numbers are right.
- Wish Upon ($92) – This was an early favorite for BP this week, but even at it’s 2,000+ theater count, I just can’t see it competing. The word of mouth is terrible, and the suggested news stories when you search the movie are instantly terrible. When the first thing you see when looking for movie times is an article calling the film a bad Final Destination knockoff, you know you’re in trouble. Avoid this one folk.
So where does that leave us. You can anchor with War for the Planet of the Apes, and trust that some of the good word of mouth for Baby Driver will follow through since Spider-man was stealing some of that last week. Some of the Spider-man crowd can make it out. Then, it’s finally a week for parents to catch up on Cars 3 with their young one, and at this budget price, it should be a safe play. I’m naming this cineplex War for the Driver of the Cars.
Think we should be trusting Wonder Woman to stand her own against Spidey? I’m not. But tell me why I’m wrong on Twitter @jakerg23.