Movies
‘IT’ Tops $300M at the Box Office While ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Underperforms
It took only five weeks for New Line Cinema’s IT to top $300M domestically as early estimates put the Stephen King adaptation at $9.6M for the weekend for a total of $305M. Worldwide is sitting at $298M (we’ll update this as soon as we have numbers), which means worldwide has officially topped $600M. IT‘s still not even close to The Sixth Sense or The Exorcist.
Warner Bros.’ other genre film, Blade Runner 2049, underperformed in its #1 spot. Early reports pegged it topping $40M only early estimates now have it at $31M. (Update: It also made $50M internationally.) While it carried a strong Cinemascore, the movie did run at nearly 3 hours, limiting the number of showings in the 4,000+ theaters. It was also R-rated, which typically can have a negative impact on box office. ERCboxoffice notes a perfect comp: The Mummy, which ended its run with $80M domestically ($400M worldwide). Blade Runner 2049 carries a reported $150M budget, which means it will need over $600M worldwide to break even. Not happening. It’s a bummer, too, as Blade Runner 2049 is a unique and artistic film that really breaks the norm of what we’d expect a studio to release. This underperforming, much like Paramount’s over-priced mother!, could put an end to studio risks until the next one breaks out.
Speaking of, mother! is working its way out of theaters quickly. It barely topped $350k this weekend in just 420 theaters. It sits at $17M domestic and $39M worldwide. If the budget weren’t a ridiculous $30M, it would have possibly recouped its budget (plus marketing). Instead, write this one up as a massive flop.
Another flop is Sony’s Flatliners remake, which found it’s way up to 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. It only dropped 43% this weekend and made another $3.8M for a total of $12.3M. On a budget of $20M, the second weekend of international only pulled in $3M more. Brutal. Right now it sits at $18M worldwide.
Let’s see how Happy Death Day performs next weekend, with Jigsaw waiting in the wings for Oct. 27.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
You must be logged in to post a comment.