Well, you know there is nothing to watch on the big screen if the top movie is one of Melissa McCarthy’s worst. Let’s not make this a McCarthy diss: she is a fantastic talent and helped enrich the world with classics such as Bridesmaids and the utterly genius Spy. But The Boss, says reviews, is stupid, crap and badly executed. In fact, many outlets can only explain its surprise debut at the top as a sign of McCarthy’s start power. Then again, it won’t be the first movie – even this year – to take on a critical slaughter and still draw in the crowds. That said, The Boss took in just over $23 million – only slightly better than McCarthy’s bomb Tammy and well below the debuts of her hits.
However you turn The Boss‘ success, it’s not a rosy picture for Batman vs. Superman, which continued its earnings collapse and fell another 50+ percent. The film is edging ever so close to the $800 million global earning mark, which is where pundits has placed its profitability line. So the flagship comic book film is not a flop, but hardly a success. The real damage is that, unlike the Marvel movies, DC and WB are clearly desperate for a big cultural hit, yet confused about where to go tonally. But the earlier Marvel movies were all over the place as well: the first Spider-Man was a pretty dark film, while the first Iron Man mainly a stage for Tony Stark one-liners. Maybe DC should stop trying so hard…
Zootopia was pushed to third but maintains its spot as the animation franchise to beat this year. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is doing okay, but if you compare it to the original, it is a good $200 million off in domestic earnings.
At fifth was another debut and the inevitable result of the glut of ‘found footage’ films. Hardcore Henry is a first-person movie in every sense of the world: the audience sees all the action through the view of the lead character. This isn’t new: Enter The Void took first person so seriously that you could even see the character blink (at least when he was alive). But it can be a bit of a gimmick and also too much for mainstream audiences. That holds true as Hardcore Henry took in an unimpressive $5 million.
Christian-themed cinema continues to preach to the choir with Miracles From Heaven, which drew just over $4 million and dropped one spot. But it’s made a total of $54 million from a $13 million budget, so that’s a hit folks. Doing slightly less well is the significantly-more preachy God’s Not Dead 2, pandering straight to the evangelical crowd. But they seem to be more tight-fisted and the film fell a hard three spots to 7th.
Talking about collapses, Allegiant, the latest Divergent movie, continues to buckle under its own weight, dropping two spots and only making $3.6 million. Doing significantly better is the dark horse hit 10 Cloverfield Lane. But a drop from 7th to 9th shows audiences have had their share of the tense Hitchcock-esque spin-off to Cloverfield. Finally, the drone drama Eye In The Sky is languishing at the exit, taking in a meagre $2 million for a total of an equally-meagre $10 million domestic purse.
- 1. The Boss – $23,4 million (NE)
- 2. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – $23,4 million (LW: 1st)
- 3. Zootopia – $14,3 million (LW: 2nd)
- 4. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 – $6,4 million (LW: 3rd)
- 5. Hardcore Henry – $5 million (NE)
- 6. Miracles from Heaven – $4,8 million (LW: 5th)
- 7. God’s Not Dead 2 – $4,3 million (LW: 4th)
- 8. The Divergent Series: Allegiant – $3,6 million (LW: 6th)
- 9. 10 Cloverfield Lane – $3 million (LW: 7th)
- 10. Eye in the Sky – $2 million (LW: 9th)
It’s goodbye to Deadpool, who is no doubt trying to build an island with all the money he got with this uber-hit. In contrast, Meet The Blacks totally faded, lasting hardly a week before being kicked to the curb.
(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)
Last Updated: April 11, 2016
