In my lengthy box office report last Sunday on how and why the whole summer film season first started, I neglected to mention that though summer is the time of year when studios makes their most money, it is also the time when they have their biggest bombs. In fact, rather perversely, it’s more interesting to predict which films are going to be the biggest box office bombs of the summer than which one will be the winners.
And though we’re only just into the second week of the summer film season, we already have a contender for the biggest bomb of the summer – Warner Bros’ “King Arthur: The Legend of Sword” which has proven a massive bust for the studio.
The Guy Ritchie directed film was conceived as the first of a potential six picture franchise, though it’s obvious now that the other five films are likely not going to happen, since the film came in third grossing a paltry $14.7 million this weekend, and an additional $29 million overseas. For a film that has a reported $175 million production budget, these opening numbers spell disaster any you look at it.
But, to be honest, it was a doomed project from the start. First of all, when it comes to movies about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table legend, it’s safe to say that John Boorman’s 1981 film “Excalibur” still remains the best film about that story, and has never been topped; although the hysterical 1975 “Money Python and Holy Grail” is a very close second.
On top of that, the Ritchie project went through almost 5 years of development and endless script rewrites, with various directors attached before Ritchie got involved. But script issues and the overall approach to the story were never fully resolved, and the film got reportedly pretty bad test audience preview scores. On top of that, how can any King Arthur film compete nowadays when you have HBO’s “Games of Thrones”? It was a misbegotten project from the get-go.
“Guardians of the Galaxy 2” was, no surprise, No. 1 again this weekend, though it dropped some 57%, but still good enough for $63 million, and a total so far of just over $246 million domestic, and $630.6 million worldwide, heading for $1 billion or very close to that.
Meanwhile Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” with $493 million so far, and heading for half a billion domestically, is now the eighth highest grossing film domestically ever, and could over take “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” for seventh place in a few weeks.
The Amy Schumer/Goldie Hawn comedy “Snatched” came in second with $17.5 million which was good news for the much more modestly budgeted comedy.
F. Gary Gray’s “The Fate of the Furious” still manages to be an extraordinary success overseas, reaching an international gross of $978.4 million on top of the $215 million it’s done in the U.S. alone. It will be interesting to see what Gray will do next next after the huge success of the film. Ideally he’s being bombarded with offers as we speak, and can now make whatever he wants to – even the most personal project.
Finally, “Get Out” has opened in more countries overseas, across Asia, the Middle East, South America and in Europe, including Germany, The Netherlands, Czech Republic and France, where it has the second biggest foreign gross after the UK, with Germany coming in fourth. To date, the film has grossed just under $39 million internationally, for a worldwide total of over $214 million, obviously most of that coming from the US.
This weekend’s top 12 grossers follow:
1) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 BV $63,007,000 Total: $246,164,419
2) Snatched Fox $17,500,000
3) King Arthur: Legend of the Sword WB $14,700,000
4) The Fate of the Furious Uni. $5,301,160 Total: $215,035,090
5) The Boss Baby Fox $4,600,000 Total: $162,379,270
6) Beauty and the Beast BV $3,860,000 Total: $493,191,164
7) How to be a Latin Lover PNT $3,750,000 Total: $26,143,001
8) Lowriders BH Tilt $2,413,205
9) The Circle STX $1,740,000 Total: $18,902,562
10) Baahubali 2: The Conclusion GrtIndia $1,550,000 Total: $18,934,072
11) Gifted FoxS $1,370,000 Total: $21,434,033
12) Smurfs: The Lost Village Sony $1,175,000 Total: $42,193,264
