by Conan Simmons – November 1, 2021 – 3:21 pm
Halloween scared up a couple of tricks at the box office over the weekend starting with the surprising underperformance of Edgar Wright’s thriller ‘Last Night in Soho’ starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The giallo inspired thriller missed out on making it into the Weekend Box Office Top 5 leaving many box office analysts to ponder, why?
The official verdict seems to be that as an arthouse specialty film it shouldn’t have opened widely the way it did. I don’t buy that. ‘Last Night in Soho’ has a popular director, popular actors including Thomasin McKenzie, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg (in her final film role), and Terence Stamp. The marketing properly promoted it as a horror-tinged thriller which should have given it some traction in Halloween season. The most probable reason I see for it not doing as well as expected is that it could be American audiences aren’t so eager to hold onto the past, hence the lackluster performance of practically every movie taking place in an historical era lately. Audience appetite is the inherent risk for every movie released and leading indicators of audience appetite can be easily overlooked or otherwise misinterpreted. This is likely the case plaguing distributors and box office analysts alike given that the lockdowns forced by Covid-19 led most everyone to believe that things have changed, though the mass known as audience appetite changes far slower than sudden changes at the box office occur.
The other wide release over the weekend, the horror film ‘Antlers’ produced by Guillermo del Toro, also failed to make it into the Weekend Box Office Top 5. While it’s not unheard of for a horror film to miss the mark during Halloween season, this one comes as a slight surprise given the third trick the box office pulled over the weekend.
Making it into the Weekend Box Office Top 5 and the only film to debut on the list this weekend is the anime ‘My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission’ directed by Kenji Nagasaki and not featuring any big name celebrities in the voice cast, the anime feature took box office analysts by surprise as audiences continue to demonstrate their hunger for animated films.
‘My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission’ isn’t the first Japanese anime film to make an impact on U.S. box office this year. Back in April the anime ‘Demon Slayer – The Movie: Mugen Train’ debuted with a strong opening to end up number one at the box office in its second week as it stayed in the Top 5 for four consecutive weeks. Since the beginning of the year there has only been six weekends without an animated film appearing in the Top 5. As On Genre points out occasionally, animated films are a strong genre at the box office even as other media outlets routinely ignore that fact.
As for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 overall it was the holdovers that dominated. The sci-fi epic ‘Dune’ easily held the top spot as the wonderful big screen experience it is. The anticipated sequel has officially been announced and is schedule for a theater only release in 2023. Director Denis Villeneuve will helm the second part with much of the cast returning.
‘Halloween Kills’ naturally held onto to second place during its namesake holiday as international super-spy 007 took third with ‘No Time to Die’ and the alien anti-hero Venom pulling up the rear in fifth place.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (October 29-31, 2021)
- ‘Dune’ – $15.5 million – sci-fi (drop $24.6 million, 61% down)
- ‘Halloween Kills’ – $8.5 million – horror (drop $6 million, 41% down)
- ‘No Time to Die’ – $7.8 million – action (drop $4.1 million, 34% down)
- ‘My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission’ – $6.4 million – animated (debut)
- ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ – $5.8 million – fantasy (drop $3.3 million, 36% down)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $44 million. This is a drop of $38.9 million from last weekends total of $82.9 million making for a 47% decline from the previous weekend.
Expect big numbers at the box office next weekend as the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe hits theaters with the debut of ‘Eternals’. The superhero fantasy is directed by Chloe Zhao, the Oscar winning director of ‘Nomadland’, and stars Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani and Kit Harrington. As revealed by a tweet from a reporter over at Variety, pop singer Harry Styles appears in the film as the character Eros a.k.a. Starfox, the brother of supervillain Thanos. Harry Styles, whose most notable acting credit was in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’, reportedly appears alongside the comic book character Pip the Troll, said to be a cgi character voiced by popular comedian Patton Oswalt. It’s likely the two will be seen again in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3’ which is now filming in Atlanta.