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USA - In what appears to be a victory for the commercial prospects of Hollywood diversity, Ocean’s 8 – the femaleled spinoff from the Ocean’s Eleven series of crime-caper movies – has soundly defeated its male predecessors in its opening weekend box office. With an estimated total of $41.5m from its first three days in North American cinemas, Ocean’s 8 has topped the opening-weekend figures for each of the previous Ocean’s films. Ocean’s Twelve managed $39.2m in 2004, Ocean’s Eleven £38.1m in 2001, and Ocean’s Thirteen was the worst-performing in 2007 with $36.1m.

According to Box Office Mojo, Ocean’s 8’s result was bolstered by a strong turnout from female filmgoers, at 69%. Its tally fell short of another “gender-swap” film, the 2016 Ghostbusters, which recorded $46m on its opening weekend. However, the latter film failed to reach the No 1 spot, being overtaken by The Secret Life of Pets, and, with its $145m production budget, it has generally been considered a financial failure. Ocean’s 8 also appears to have avoided the vicious online trolling that accompanied the release of Ghostbusters, as well as the more recent attacks on cast members of the Star Wars franchise. USC Annenberg professor Sarah Banet-Weiser, the author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny, told the Hollywood Reporter it was most probably due to the relative newness of the Ocean’s series. “The audiences for those movies are now adult men and they had a particular impact on them as adolescents and teenagers and growing up. Ocean’s 8 doesn’t have that.”

Ocean’s 8 has scored a solid B+ on the CinemaScore exit poll. However, audience reaction to the critically acclaimed horror film Hereditary appears to be considerably worse, with a D+ rating. With a spectacular 93% positive rating on the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Hereditary is following in the footsteps of 2016 “arthouse horror” The Witch, which recorded 91% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, but has a C- rating on CinemaScore. Variety critic Owen Gleiberman ascribes the hostility to the failure of a portion the mainstream audience to empathise with the emotionally disturbed characters: “There was something very Age of Trump in the response.” However, also like The Witch, Hereditary has recorded an impressive opening weekend – an estimated $13m – with a higher screen average than either Solo: A Star Wars Story or Deadpool 2.

(The Guardian)