The Rock may not be box-office platinum after all. Skyscraper, the latest putative blockbuster vehicle for the actor also known as Dwayne Johnson, has unexpectedly flopped on its US release, with an estimated box-office first weekend total of $25.5m, well beaten by kiddie animation Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Skyscraper’s collapse is all the more startling as, just a few days ago, industry observers were confidently predicting it could score as much as $40m and provide serious competition for Transylvania, the third in a series of proven strength in the family-audience market.
Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro identified Johnson “wear-out” as one of the primary causes of Skyscraper’s failure: the last eight months have also seen him in two major releases, Rampage and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Jumanji (which came out in December 2017), was a significant global money earner, while giant-ape thriller Rampage recorded only middling results, though its US opening, at $35m in April 2018, was well ahead of Skyscraper. This is despite the goodwill that Johnson has accrued as a performer, which suggests his commercial impact as a solo lead (ie, outside the multi-character Fast and Furious series) is steady rather than spectacular.
D’Alessandro also suggested that the producers’ preoccupation with appealing to Chinese audiences may have compromised Skyscraper’s appeal in the US. The film, set in a Hong Kong tower block, was produced by Hollywood outfit Legendary Pictures, who in 2016 were purchased by Chinese conglomerate Wanda, and have since concentrated on releasing films – Warcraft, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Kong: Skull Island – that had putatively crossover potential, but all struggled to break even on enormous production budgets.
China’s appetite for its own big-budget spectaculars is also proving difficult to anticipate. The “whitewashed” epic The Great Wall, conceived as Hollywood-Chinese cross-fertilisation and backed by Legendary, was a notorious money-loser, while Asura, billed as the most expensive Chinese film ever made, has been withdrawn at short notice from cinemas after earning a disastrous $7.1m.
