I know a lot of us were disappointed that the new take on The Addams Family wasn’t targeted at us horror fans, but it’s hard to blame MGM for making such a smart financial decision. It’s obvious that their target audience was young children, the same kids that would have seen the massively successful Hotel Transylvania trilogy and its television series. The only difference here is that The Addams Family (read our review) carried a much cheaper price tag (reportedly $25M), which probably explains the crude animation. With that, MGM already has a hit on their hands, which means The Addams Family has officially moved into animation for foreseeable future.
The new incarnation opened to an impressive $30M here in the States, which means it’ll profit from just the U.S. box office only. International numbers are the gravy and who knows how big they’ll be (Hotel Transylvania worked its way towards $358M). We’ll be updating you throughout the week as information comes in. Expect a sequel.
In the film, Charlize Theron voices Morticia Addams and Oscar Isaac is voicing Gomez Addams, with Chloe Grace Moretz as Wednesday Addams. The cast also includes Finn Wolfhard as Pugsley Addams, Nick Kroll as Uncle Fester, Bette Midler as Grandmama, Allison Janney as Margaux Needler, and Elsie Fisher as Parker Needler, the daughter of Margaux.
One of the directors and voice actors, who brings to life the character of Lurch among others, is Conrad Vernon (Shrek 2, The Simpsons, Sausage Party, Madagascar 3, Ren and Stimpy), and we chatted with him in the latest episode of The Boo Crew. Listen below!
Warner Bros. gutsy new take on Joker (read our review), the Todd Phillips-directed spinoff that stars Joaquin Phoenix as the title character, continues to be a smash, adding $55M domestically and $123M internationally for a global take of $544M.
I expect its full run to easily surpass $750M. Is it possible Warner Bros. would sequelize this one-shot? Maybe we get a Riddler, Scarecrow, Two-Face or Penguin origin story?
ALSO READ: The Horrors of Joker: How the Controversial Comic Book Film Earns a Place in the Genre
As I wrote last week, the success of Joker has kicked opens doors all across Hollywood as it signals to all of the studio heads that different is good. No, we don’t need to see constant retellings of the same stories. No, they don’t need to have an “anchor” hero inserted as a cameo to sell tickets. Much like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man signaled to other studios that they can make a quality superhero movie, and just like The Dark Knight showed execs that children aren’t the only fans, Joker is historic in that it will kickstart a new subgenre of comic adaptations in which the studios aren’t universe building. Just focusing on telling a good story and people will show up.
