I don’t like what McG stands for and consequently I hate This Means War. Throughout this article that may become tediously clear. The film is rubbish and in a box-office that this week has been buoyed to a long overdue comparative high I regret that a large chuck of that success is constituted by the aforementioned pile of arse that is This Means War.
In other less self-indulgently negative news The Woman in Black has nipped out of the top spot down to second. Bested by the power of the grey pound it has been beaten by last week’s runner-up The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
The new releases on the other hand fared badly. Apart form This Means War. That fared all too well.
The Winner – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel/McG
Last week I predicted that if they built it the oldies would come and come they did as this week The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has managed to do what very few have managed. It has jumped in surprisingly spritely fashion from second to first in the box office netting a gross of £2,342,095, proving if proof were ever needed that OAPs are a force to be reckoned with.
On a rumoured budget of around £8 million the film is currently looking down the barrel of a possible £15 million+ gross. However, with many touting a £20 million+ showing which I highly doubt The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel could prove to be a nice word of mouth earner for Fox who would have surely seen it as a very steady understated release (as indeed the tepid ad campaign would lead us to believe).
Nevertheless it’s knocked The Woman in Black off of the top spot but I’m sure no one there is complaining. Currently outperforming the likes of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and destroying pretty much everything in its path currently four weeks after release it’s doing bloody well for itself.
The Loser – Wanderlust/The Audience
Judd Apatow hasn’t been cleaning up like he once was recently. Gone are the days when a plot revolving mainly around nerds, copious amounts of weed and Seth Rogen would garner you a million dollar pat on the back and the keys to the big boy room. Nope. The Apatow Mafia have struggled of late. With the reflected cultural glory of McLovin’s fake ID fading into background static all that is left is a few well-worn tropes. That and Kristen Wiig who is absolutely excellent.
The latest Apatow production Wanderlust has hit the box-office this week with all of the voracity of Rogen after an ill-advisedly large bong-hit (you know the one, the one where he inhales for too long and splutters like a big hairy lion with bad comic timing, in every film he has ever done or ever will do). It’s weekend earnings of £490,592 from a hearty 371 sites is just not good enough, especially when placed next to recent Aniston vehicles (The Bounty Hunter taking £2,055,021 and Horrible Bosses £2,077,239). I guess the gravy train’s slowing down running as it is on old ideas, past glories and marijuana.
Oh, and if you hadn’t already guessed the biggest earning new entry this week is This Means War garnering a decent gross from 451 sites. The audience this week has been ill-served by their judgement and as a result of that they’ve lost at the cinema game (the one where you have to pay to enter and if you pick a McG film you lose). No entertainment or prizes for them then and if it was ideas or intelligence they were looking for they’ve gone home empty handed. The fools. Speaking of which:
The Rubbish –This Means War
It’s the film I’m currently obsessed with. Why? Because it looks rubbish, it’s reviews are rubbish, it’s director is rubbish and it stars Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy is rubbish (oh God it does actually hurt to joke about it, Tom Hardy is of course amazing). So why oh why oh why has everyone gone to see it? I know £1,821,698 is hardly earth shattering but it just doesn’t deserve that sort of box office and it makes me sad. McG never aspires to anything higher than music video visuals with some snappy talking and yet his movies make millions and millions of money. All that money could go to deserving people who deserve it. Why not give it to deserving people who deserve it? Why?
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a career long experiment concerning the lack of discernment shown by the modern cinema-goer. What everyone is doing I don’t know but when he does finally publish his results I’m sure they’ll look a little something like this:
The Film That Never Dies – The Artist
Hanging in there and refusing to let go The Artist has cleaned up the big awards at the Oscars but not exactly set the box-office alight with the fire of a million The King’s Speech’s (£45 million at the UK box-office in case you were wondering). After two months it has only just broken the £8 million mark and with every man and his cute silent dog acting like they’ve seen it this seems awfully paradoxical.
Even so it’s no mean feat sticking it out for almost 9 weeks on the trot (dropping out of the top 10 for only a week three weeks back). Unlike certain films this time round (have I mentioned that This Means War grossed as much money in a weekend as it would take to feed 57256 starving children for a year?) The Artist deserves everything it can get but even so I can’t help but feel that this might be an all too silent goodbye to the film that stubbornly refuses to leave until it reaches an 8 figure gross. Sadly I doubt it will make it.
Next Time…
Well with the box-office on a temporary high beating it’s comparative takings in 2011 for the first time this year it seems cause to celebrate. It’s a shame then that Disney’s John Carter is going to bomb. When I say bomb of course I’m sure it’ll take a lot of money, but $250 million? Of course there’s America to consider and a whole swathe of countries just aching to stick the next big thing on their screens. But it’s not the next big thing and was never going to be.
Whilst it’s great that a new cinematic franchise in the making is getting such enthusiastic funding I’m betting there won’t be a sequel. But then again I’m often wrong about many many things so take this entire contentious paragraph with a pinch of salt.
Next week we’ve also got the spot the anachronism game that is The Raven, a film based on a fictionalised account of Edgar Allen Poe’s life starring a now elusive John Cusack that I’m sure will fare badly. We’ve got Robert Pattinson starring in something. It needs no more description than that to figure out who’s going and how much money they will be paying for the privilege. Ok then, it’s called Bel Ami, not that anyone (including the fans) cares. Other than that the Brit’s are out to play with Sean Bean in Cleanskin and Adam Deacon in Payback Season which will find a moderate sized audience at best. It’s not looking great.
P.s. McG does sound like a nice guy in interviews. I guess I should lay off him a bit in future…
UK Top 10 Films:
- The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, £2,342,095 from 509 sites. Total: £7,014,101
- The Woman in Black, £1,888,232 from 461 sites. Total: £17,629,443
- This Means War, £1,821,698 from 451 sites (New Entry)
- Safe House, £1,316,965 from 428 sites. Total: £4,716,050
- The Muppets, £1,239,822 from 514 sites. Total: £14,434,872
- Project X, £561,655 from 332 sites (New Entry)
- Wanderlust, £490,592 from 371 sites (New Entry)
- The Artist, £469,369 from 320 sites. Total: £8,496,472
- Journey 2 the Mysterious Island, £387,435 from 374 sites. Total: £6,231,644
- The Vow, £264,643 from 266 sites. Total: £5,221,026
Other New Releases:
- London, Paris, New York, 23 sites, £32,640
- Hunky Dory, 59 sites, £31,930
- Carancho, 9 sites, £18,394
- Michael, 14 sites, £13,389
- Khodorkovsky, 7 sites £8,747
- Paan Singh Tomar, 8 sites, £7,450
- Blank City, 2 sites, £2,455
- If Not Us, Who?, 2 sites, £1,761
Top Film This Time Last Year: Rango
Source: DCM
