Bombs away!
MOVIES: Summer of 2016 had a few good flicks, but will be remembered for collective yawns
It was the hottest summer on record. And yet, the venues with the most reliable air conditioning — movie theatres — went largely unfilled.
How bad was it? You’d think the studios were serving hot soup instead of would-be blockbusters. Analysts are predicting the final box office tally will be at least 20 per cent lower than last year’s summer movie season.
Supposed “sure things” like Ice Age and X-Men, Steven Spielberg and a long-awaited sequel to Independence Day were greeted with a relative yawn.
There was no upside to controversy, as the rebooted, all-female Ghostbusters took what’s expected to be a $70-million loss (and saw its sequel plans put on hold) — possibly the biggest disconnect between pre-release awareness and post-release box office since Snakes on a Plane.
So here’s a list of the hits, misses and underperformers. Might as well start with the big list first — bombs away!
Bombs
ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE: Well, the fifth time’s a … um, what’s the opposite of “charm?” For once critics and audiences agreed. Thirteen per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, $25-million opening.
THE BFG: Spielberg is the man who invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws. He returned to ET territory with a Roald Dahl-based family film about a boy and his giant. The $140-million movie has a meagre $20-million opening.
BEN-HUR: Gosh, it worked with Charlton Heston back in the ’50s, what could go wrong? The swordand-sandals saga with fast-and-furious chariot races was in and out of theatres practically unnoticed. ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: It took in about a fifth of the original’s box office. Who knows? Maybe the $7-million divorce Amber Heard got from Johnny Depp is half of everything he owns. THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR: A Snow White sequel without Snow White, or more importantly without Kristen Stewart.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Cowabungle! Made about half what the previous reboot did.
WARCRAFT: Everybody’s played the game. But do you know anybody who’s seen the movie? If so, are they Chinese? Because almost two-thirds of the movie’s break-even $430-million worldwide box office came from there. The video-game movie curse continues.
GHOSTBUSTERS: A pretty funny movie with a lot of baggage. Not sure who won the arguments, but it may be that people were just tired of the whole thing by the time it opened. NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING: Actually got some good reviews, but turned into another case of a sequel getting only half the audience of its predecessor. Chloe Grace Moretz may not be ready for her close-up, or Seth Rogen is on a down-swing.
THE NICE GUYS: Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as buddy comedy guys may sound counterintuitive, but 90 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes says the chemistry worked. And then an $11-million opening says, “Who cares what you guys think?”
PETE’S DRAGON: Disney promoted the heck out of this boy-and-his-monster tale, starring grownups Robert Redford and Bryce Dallas Howard. Took in about the same money as Spielberg’s BFG, though it cost less than half as much.
NINE LIVES: Kevin Spacey’s mind is in the body of a cat. How could that not work? The combination of Spacey, Jennifer Garner and Christopher Walken was good for a meagre $6-million opening.
Underperformers
In olden days, this would just be a euphemism for “Bomb.” But today, a movie like Independence Day: Resurgence can attract crickets in North America, but make enough overseas for everybody to get paid.
In the case of the Star Trek and X-Men films, enough came in to justify further sequels, even if nobody was popping Champagne corks.
X-MEN APOCALYPSE: Apparently, at the Xavier Academy, attention is paid to what critics say. The previous film, Days of Future Past got great advance reviews and made about a third more in its first 10 days than the badly reviewed Apocalypse. The feeling is the franchise needs a shakeup. STAR TREK BEYOND: Well received by Trekkers and critics, the first Star Trek reboot not directed by J.J. Abrams had a $60-million opening weekend, which Forbes pronounced, “just OK.”
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE: Proof there’s no movie so bad it can’t be saved by the apparently less-discriminating overseas market.
Hits
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR: It may be impossible to totally fail with a superhero movie these days. But Civil War already had buzz as being nothing less than a new Avengers movie. Awash in iconic heroes and smartly executed, it made more than $1.1 billion worldwide.
SUICIDE SQUAD: The most truly critic-proof film since the last Transformers, the anti-hero saga with Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie has taken slings-and-arrows to the bank. Suicide Squad’s box office is already double its budget and it’s been No. 1 for three weeks. Like the similarly reviled-but-profitable Batman v Superman, there’s been a sizable drop-off week-to-week.
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE: Not a sequel and not based on anything except the popularity of Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and Kevin Hart. Result: $200 million. Whatever buddy-comedy chemistry they’ve got, Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling would like to know what it is.
THE JUNGLE BOOK: Sure, you expected Captain America: Civil War to gross $1 billion. But a reboot of The Jungle Book using motion capture CGI à la the bear in The Revenant? Grossing just under a billion, Jon Favreau’s labour of love for Disney was the family movie this summer. OK, there was another.
FINDING DORY: Proof that the public’s love for Ellen DeGeneres is bottomless, and her ditzy, forgetful blue tang fish character is adorable beyond measure.
BAD MOMS: Forget the Ghostbusters. There was a hilarious all-female sleeper hit this summer, and it starred Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn. That’s $100 million worth of “underrated” and counting.
THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE: Not quite as big in China as Warcraft, it did four times the business in North America, lofting it past the marks set by Prince of Egypt and other terrific movies-based-on-video games. OTHER PROFITABLE PERFORMERS: Lights Out, Conjuring 2, Jason Bourne, The Legend Of Tarzan, The Purge 3: Anarchy.