1. Ford v Ferrari (review)- $31M
James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari zoomed into the Oscar race with a killer $31M opening weekend. Led by the starry duo of Matt Damon and Christian Bale, this looks like an honest-to-goodness blockbuster that doubles as a prestige drama. These kinds of movies don’t come around much during the year, and rarely hit the ground running the way this one did. The reviews have been good-to-great across the board (I absolutely loved it), earning the buzz these films need to survive in a loaded crowd of awards season contenders. Disney has to be happy, finally scoring the box office hit they hoped for when acquiring Fox. Worldwide it has $52M.
2. Midway– $8.7M/$35.1M
3. Charlie’s Angels (review)- $8.6M
The latest reboot of Charlie’s Angels failed to take flight with just $8.6M. Oof. The latest take on the trio of female super-spies fell way short of the McG-directed versions from 2000 and 2003, which opened with $40M and $37M respectively, this despite an all-new trio of Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, and Naomi Scott. Elizabeth Banks wrote, directed, and starred in this version, which joins Terminator Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep as relaunches of older franchises that have gone nowhere lately. I have my theories on why this one failed so badly. The previous films starred three red-hot actresses coming together almost like a female Justice League in a movie that was as cheeky as it gets, while this one’s biggest name is Stewart who is long past being a big draw. Banks wasn’t playing into the sex appeal of her cast, which was a big part of the reason for previous films’ success. I’m not saying her approach was a mistake, I quite liked what she and her stars did, but others may have been wanting one thing and got another.
4. Playing with Fire– $8.5M/$25.4M
5. Last Christmas– $6.7M/$22.5M
6. Doctor Sleep– $6.1M/$25M
7. The Good Liar (review)- $5.65M
I’m disappointed to see the $5.6M weekend for Bill Condon’s The Good Liar, an excellent little cat-and-mouse thriller led by two of our best, Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren. The good news it was only a $10M investment, and it’s already made a few more million overseas so this won’t be a total loss. I just don’t want to see this movie vanish because it’s seriously a lot of fun, and people shouldn’t be thrown off assuming it’s dull and stuffy because of the casting. That would be a terrible mistake.
8. Joker– $5.63M/$322.5M
Joker continues to break records all around the world. It’s now broken the $1B barrier and become the biggest earner to never play in China. I’m on record predicting it will do better than Matt Reeves’ The Batman when that movie comes out in a couple of years, which is just wild to think about.
9. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil- $5.2M/$106M
10. Harriet– $4.7M/$31.8M
