But every Christmas gathering still needs its black sheep. Its eventual $173m US take was extremely impressive like the sublime Bad Santa, The Night Before is too edgy to compete with that. 2003’s Elf is an interesting case study: the third highest grossing Christmas film ever, ignoring inflation, thanks to bolstering buffoon du jour Will Ferrell with a superb high concept (Santa’s helper learns he’s actually human). Clearly, an R-rating is a barrier not only to the kinds of debuts enjoyed by family fodder like How the Grinch Stole Christmas ($55.1m) or The Polar Express ($23.3m), but also by more adult-intended but mainstream jams like Elf and Four Christmases (both $31.1m).
That’s a slight disappointment, given Rogen’s popularity, built up over a prolific run of comedies in the last few years. Falling into the foul-mouthed, cynical-but-sweet camp of Christmas entertainment, it’s opened at $10.1m in the US and sixth place globally in the same range as Bad Santa ($12.2m) and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas ($12.9m). That’s the strategy adopted by new comedy The Night Before, in which Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anthony Mackie team up as three friends in search of a legendary NYC festive pissup. Directly Yule-themed works – slightly old-fashioned notion that they are – tend to avoid opening over the holiday period itself, to avoid whatever blockbuster may be on the prowl then. In Hollywood, Christmas comes in November. Already the second most successful film in the franchise, it is still a major success – especially considering that Bond had no parachuting monarch ushering things in this time. It’s likely that a diminished US take, possibly swayed by tough reviews, will be what prevents Spectre from setting a new record. Only the US – some $70m short of Skyfall at the same third-weekend point – is seriously withholding, though it could experience a bounce on the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. Germany and France are a little behind the previous movie, though the increased strength of the dollar since 2012 plays a part in that, too. The UK is running almost par with Skyfall at fourth weekend stage (Skyfall: $131.6m Spectre: $130.5m). Even if the Chinese haven’t taken to 007 as passionately as Sony might’ve hoped, Spectre’s classicist approach – not only joining the dots between the Daniel Craig films, but self-referentially putting Bond on a kind of greatest-hits carousel of past escapades – seems to have shored up Bond’s appeal in places where he’s already a household name.
But actually, it’s in extremely rude health a month into its rollout: $677.8m worldwide and still with an outside chance of matching Skyfall’s $1.1bn. Second-tier stuff, in other words.īig drops this weekend for Spectre in the US (-57%) and China (-75%) look alarming. But it looks as though it will wind up somewhere between the first Hunger Games’ $694.4m and Part 1’s $755.4m, leaving the franchise without a $1bn grosser. Mockingjay – Part 2 doesn’t have much competition in the tentpole stakes until The Force Awakens lands on 18 December presumably playing more to millennials than Spectre, it may still pull in strays keen to see the conclusion of the Katniss saga. The Chinese result – $16.4m against Part 1’s $19.8m – is another blow, as that was the one territory able to cushion a disappointing American showing. Mitigating that is the fact that openings for the top 10 territories have all dropped since Part 1, apart from Germany (where the world premiere took place). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 – video review GuardianĬurrently stacking up nearly 60% towards international territories, the good news is that The Hunger Games is continuing to build overseas (Part 1 was split 44% US/56% international).
0 kommentar(er)
