Weekend Wrap-Up: Dark Fate Might have Terminated the Franchise
November 5, 2019
It was a bad weekend at the box office, with Terminator: Dark Fate missing expectations by a significant degree. Harriet was able to beat expectations, but it wasn’t enough to truly compensate. Furthermore, Arctic Dogs and Motherless Brooklyn were practically non-factors at the box office. The box office did grow 9.5% from last weekend reaching $115 million. More importantly, this was 21% lower than this weekend last year. 2019’s deficit grew to 5.6% or $540 million and is now behind 2018’s pace by $9.15 billion to $9.70 billion. It is important to point out that while 2019 is being crushed by 2018, it is still on pace to be the second largest box office of all time, while its ticket sales are better than 2017’s pace, so as disappointing as the year as been so far, there are still reasons to celebrate.
Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth film in the Terminator franchise and it might be the last. The movie only managed $29.03 million during its opening weekend, and while this is technically more than Genisys earned during its opening three-day weekend that movie debuted on a Wednesday, so it is an unfair comparison. The film’s legs likely won’t be great. Its reviews and its B plus from CinemaScore aren’t the issue, but its theater average is. I don’t think theater owners will be excited to keep this film around a long time and the moment a big release hits, they will push this film into their smaller screens, if not drop it outright. Getting to $100 million domestically is basically impossible at this point, while it needs nearly $500 million worldwide to break even any time soon. I don’t see that happening either. Perhaps, if Paramount gets desperate, they will try and revive the franchise in several years from now.
Joker keeps beating expectations, this time earning $13.50 million over the weekend for a total of $299.19 million after a month of release.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil also beat expectations earning $13.09 million pushing its running tally to $85.24 million after three weeks of release. It will clear $100 million with ease, but it will very likely fall out of the top five by then.
Harriet opened with $11.68 million during its opening weekend. The film’s reviews were among the best of the weekend and it earned a stellar A plus from CinemaScore. Additionally, it is aimed at a more mature target audience and Cynthia Erivo is earning some Awards Season buzz for her performance in the titular role. All of this should help its legs, maybe even enough to keep it in theaters until after Christmas.
The Addams Family rounded out the top five with $8.30 million over the weekend for a total of $85.09 million after four. It will reach $100 million domestically, but this is the last weekend it will be in the top five.
Motherless Brooklyn only managed ninth place with $3.50 million over the weekend. Its reviews are barely in the overall positive level, so it won’t have great legs either. The only saving grace is its small theater count, meaning it wasn’t a complete disaster.
Unfortunately, Arctic Dogs was a complete disaster earning $2.90 million in 2,844 theaters. It also had the worst reviews of the weekend and a terrible B minus on CinemaScore. That’s beyond awful for a family film. This film will be all but gone by Thanksgiving.
There were a couple of additional films on the sophomore class, Countdown and Black and Blue. The former landed in seventh place down just 35% to $5.77 million over the weekend for a total of $17.68 million after two weeks of release. This is a fantastic hold for a horror film. Black and Blue fell 51% to just $4.14 million over the weekend for a two-week running tally of $15.53 million.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Motherless Brooklyn, Arctic Dogs, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Terminator: Dark Fate, The Addams Family, Black and Blue, Joker, Harriet, Countdown, Terminator, Cynthia Erivo