Universal v Warner
AKA the winner v the loser of summer 2015. This week’s box office speaks volumes: Minions coasts past the $1bn mark for Universal, the studio’s third 10-digiter this year after Furious 7 and Jurassic World; Warner Bros’ Zac Efron-starring EDM drama We Are Your Friends tanks, managing just $1.8m, a calamity for a wide release. There’s nothing inherently wrong with closing summer with a niche, quasi-indie drama, but not if the rest of your summer slate has consisted of indifferent franchise revisitations (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Vacation, Entourage, Magic Mike XXL), plodding genre efforts (The Gallows, Hot Pursuit) and one trumped-up B-movie (San Andreas). Only Mad Max: Fury Road had that must-see sparkle – and it under-performed financially. It’s not obligatory to have a massive tentpole hit – Universal has its most profitable year ever without one in 2014 – but in that case you have to arrange and advertise your stall more shrewdly than Warner have this year. Perhaps the studio is still on a post-Harry Potter comedown.
Universal, in contrast, went for quality not quantity. Well, OK, Minions and Jurassic World aren’t exactly meisterwerks, but they were indelibly branded, staking their place in the box-office arena with the kind of focused commercial intent most of Warner’s wishy-washy selection lacked. And so it proved elsewhere on their lineup: Pitch Perfect 2 fed the demand for a sequel to a surprise breakout hit; Trainwreck used the force of nature that is Amy Schumer to revitalise Judd Apatow’s career; and Straight Outta Compton has broken new ground for hip-hop on screen (in the US at least – see below). Only Ted 2 looked a little threadbare, particularly its overseas gross (currently $109m against the first’s $330.6m). But Universal – having set a new record for highest annual international gross ($3.8bn) already by August – will take that one on the chin.
Rap sheet
Straight Outta Compton has brought the proverbial ruckus in the US, and its domestic take is now a very tight-looking $134.1m – already up on 8 Mile’s $116.8m from 2002. With that to kick it off, the accompanying Dr Dre record, and a much-deepened worldwide hip-hop fanbase since the days when NWA were piquing the moral majority, you might expect Universal’s film to get the broader international box office jumping, too. Based on the first major overseas openings this weekend, it looks as if expectations might have to be tempered: the UK ($3.9m) and Germany ($2.2m) opened some way short of 8 Mile, even without inflation-correction ($7.1m and $7.6m respectively). In the absence of the African American constituency driving the film on in the States, it seems like appreciative reviews and an outbreak of South Central nostalgia aren’t quite enough; without a big draw like Eminem on screen, this looks as though it may perform more like a straight drama than the sociologically founded blockbuster it has proved in the US. F Gary Gray’s film has around 24 forthcoming markets to prove that idea wrong, but the US numbers could see it top 8 Mile’s worldwide gross of $242.9m even if it drags overseas.
Midterm reports
Minions’ $1bn-breaching run we’ve already had words about. Terminator Genisys is now officially in he’ll-be-back territory, having crossed $400m on the strength of an unexpected Chinese burn – though on $82.6m after eight days there, its performance looks to be in the order of toasty rather than red-hot. Equally frightening for lovers of not-depressingly-terrible cinema is news that 80s-arcade throwback comedy Pixels has now delivered Adam Sandler’s biggest overseas gross ($114.8m), passing both Grown-Ups films; some twisted executive decision to suit him up in something vaguely resembling a blockbuster seems to have duped sufficient numbers of filmgoers. On the superhero front, Fox can no longer deny that their dour Fantastic Four, on a $120m budget, will be a financial write-off: it’s taken $144.4m globally, with most of its release schedule played out. At $369m, and thus the straggler of Marvel’s in-house productions, Ant-Man is probably not doing as well as hoped either – though a far-east triple whammy of South Korea (3 Sept), China (18 Sept) and Japan (19 Sept) may rectify that. The latter, especially, loves a kooky premise.
Slightly mystifying, given the perky response to the fifth Mission: Impossible, is how far Rogue Nation currently lags behind number four, Ghost Protocol: $479.4m to $694.7m, and 64.5% to 69.9% in terms of the overseas split. Is it the lack of trademark-international locations this time, like the Burj Dubai? Is it another slippage in Tom Cruise’s declining box-office appeal? China, opening on 8 September, could be the arbiter on those questions. Unequivocally cause for a bowling ball of joy rolling into the archives is that Inside Out is now over the $700m threshold and displaying unquenchable longevity: its holds are consistently strong almost everywhere, of the like you rarely see from popcorn fodder. The slow-burn release schedule seems to have built up demand, and Italy (16 Sept), Germany (1 Oct) and China (8 Oct) are still in the locker.
Beyond Hollywood
Not listed by Rentrak was Mumbai bombing thriller Phantom, already banned in Pakistan, but opening capably in India to the tune of around 35 crore rupees ($5.3m) – nothing compared to director Kabir Khan’s recent mega-smash Bajrangi Bhaijaan, but not bad for a contemporary thriller deemed to have been questionably “cobbled together from the adventures of Messrs Bond and Bourne”, as Indian Express had it. In sixth place globally with $16.2m was war movie The Hundred Regiments Offensive, an account of a critical second-world-war Sino-Japanese engagement, or what looks to be another China Film Co-sponsored Communist-party puff-piece similar to 2009’s The Founding of a Republic. Cao Baoping’s thriller The Dead End, at No 7 with $14m, is pulling in plaudits for a boundary-pushing (for China) setup about three men trying to escape their involvement in a rape-murder case: it doesn’t just feature an unusual homosexual subplot, but also only the second screen depiction of the country’s lethal-injection capital punishment method (the first apparently being in Johnnie To’s Drug War).
The future
Another extremely quiet weekend. The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which only seems to have hit the mark in Russia, takes on two more big emerging markets – Brazil and Mexico – though it’ll be surprisingly if either is a stronghold for fans of retro 60s TV. Jonathan Demme’s rocker-redemption story Ricki and the Flash, a letdown at the US box office, looks to slipstream into the musical bent of star Meryl Streep’s recent filmography, as it gets its autumn international rollout under way in more than 15 territories, including the UK, Brazil, South Korea and South Africa. And Bollywood big boy is jaunty masala gangster comedy sequel Welcome Back, welcoming back several cast members (notably Anil Kapoor) from the 2007 original. Judging by the trailer, Dubai location work – Bollywood’s own Monte Carlo – has played a big part in filling out the $16m budget, the low end of the Indian top end.
Top 10 global box office, 28-30 August
1. Terminator Genisys, $23.8m from 26 territories. $409.3m cumulative – 78.2% international; 21.8% US
2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, $23.6m from 65 territories. $471.1m cum – 65.6% int; 34.4% US
3. Straight Outta Compton, $19.7m from 9 territories. $140.9m cum – 0.1% int; 99.9% US
4. Minions, $17.8m from 61 territories. $1.02bn cum – 68.1% int; 31.9% US
5. Hitman: Agent 47, $17m from 61 territories. $36.4m cum – 68.6% int; 31.4% US
6. (New) The Hundred Regiments Offensive, $16.2m from 1 territory – 100% int
7. (New) The Dead End, $14m from 1 territory. $18.5m cum – 100% int
8. Inside Out, $12.3m from 36 territories. $715.6m cum – 51.9% int; 48.1% US
9. (New) War Room, $11.3m from 11 territories – 0.3% int; 99.7% US
10. The Man From U.N.C.L.E., $10m from 47 territories. $66.3m cum – 55.2% int; 44.8% US
• Thanks to Rentrak. This week’s figures are based on estimates; all historical figures unadjusted, unless otherwise stated.
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