by Conan Simmons – August 23, 2021 – 8:06 pm
Three new releases hit theaters over the weekend and none of them got close to making it into the Weekend Box Office Top 5.
Of the three the most surprising to have not made it is the new action thriller ‘The Protege’ starring Maggie Q and Michael Keaton. While it was never expected to hit number one, I did think it would make it somewhere on the Top 5, unlike the other two new releases.
Falling below ‘The Protege’ is the noticeably un-anticipated horror film ‘The Night House’, starring Rebecca Hall. Horror films have been doing fairly well at the box office in the past year but somehow there never seemed to be any excitement among fans as this films release date approached. Nothing to compare to the quiet groundswell of support for lower budgeted offerings like ‘Don’t Breathe 2’ or ‘The Green Knight’.
The biggest disappointment for studios over the weekend has to be the Hugh Jackman sci-fi film, ‘Reminiscence’. A day-and-date release for Warner Bros. on HBO Max, I never looked for the film to break into the Top 5 for two very notable reasons. The first, of course, is the day-and-date release. Many movies have been able to make at least some mark on the Top 5 using this release strategy. In the case of ‘Reminiscence’ the problem was enhanced by the advertisements touting it being available on HBO Max with barely a mention of the film being in theaters. The second reason I felt the movie would fail was that practically every single shot shown in the trailer looked to be scenes taken from other, often well known, films in the sci-fi genre. Most obvious were the Hugh Jackman in a water tank à la ‘X-Men’ and the dystopian street scenes that looked ripped straight out of ‘Strange Days’.
There was one debut film over the weekend that did perform better than expected, ‘PAW Patrol: The Movie’. After dominating the box office in France, the animated feature based on the popular tv series was expected to hit on the Top 5, though I expected it to be in the bottom half with $10 million max. Instead, ‘PAW Patrol: The Movie’, keeping with animation as America’s favored genre for the past year, took second place with a $13 million debut. The only surprise now would be if it fails to hold onto the Top 5 next weekend. Animated films don’t drop off as easy as other genres so it may hold for a few more weeks.
The films holding on for two weeks or more in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 are the Ryan Reynolds comedy ‘Free Guy’, also starring Jodie Comer, staying number one. ‘Jungle Cruise’ maintains a steady course for third, proving that star power can still drive ticket sales. Rounding out the Top 5 are the horror sequel ‘Don’t Breathe 2’ and the Aretha Franklin biopic ‘Respect’, starring Jennifer Hudson as the famed singer.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (August 20-22, 2021)
- ‘Free Guy’ – $18.8 million – comedy (drop $9.6 million, 34% down)
- ‘PAW Patrol: The Movie’ – $13 million – family animation (debut)
- ‘Jungle Cruise’ – $6.2 million – adventure (drop $2.8 million, 31% down)
- ‘Don’t Breathe 2’ – $5.1 million – horror (drop $5.5 million, 52% down)
- ‘Respect’ – $3.8 million – biopic (drop $5 million, 57% down)
The total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 is $46.9 million. This is a 27% decline for a loss of $17.7 million from last weekends total of $64.6 million.
Next weekend should see a new number one winner when the highly anticipated horror film, ‘Candyman’, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II releases after being delayed from last year.
‘Candyman’ isn’t the only horror film releasing next weekend. A lesser known movie, and one that will unlikely come anywhere near the Top 5 (not just because it’s a limited release), ‘Death Rider in the House of Vampires’ will be the latest in the sorely underserved genre, the horror-western. Starring Julian Sands it will probably be of interest only to fans of the genre blend, which had an overlooked hey-day in the 1930’s. Back then the horror-western focused a bit more on hidden psychos, sort of like the slasher films of the 1980’s without the gore. In more recent decades the horror-western incorporated the creature feature to usually underwhelming effect.
Labor Day weekend will see another genre blend in limited release, probably the rarest genre of all, the horror-musical. ‘The Nowhere Inn’ starring St. Vincent will be in a few theaters and, like most all limited releases these days, will not get into the Top 5. As rare as horror-musicals are ‘The Nowhere Inn’ seems to be leaning a little less horror in favor of something more psychedelic such as Frank Zappa’s ‘200 Motels’ and probably nothing like the cult movie hit ‘Wild Zero’ starring Japanese rockers, Guitar Wolf.
Naturally Labor Day weekend will be dominated by Marvel’s ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’. A theater only release, it will need to match the day-and-date opening weekend of previous Marvel film ‘Black Widow’ which took in $80 million. As ‘Shang-Chi’ will not be streaming on the same day the box office take should hit $90 million or more. With 56% of the U.S. population currently vaccinated with more getting the shot every day, the highly publicized Delta variant cases will likely have less effect on box office than many expect. Practically no wide releases are set to follow for the rest of September so ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ will hold the top spot for a few weeks. Unless the long fabled “superhero fatigue” prophecy comes to pass, in which case next month will be dominated by headlines declaring the ever-shifting business of Hollywood.