Tag Archives: atomic blonde

Dark Tower Barely Wins a Soft Weekend at the Box Office

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Despite lots of anticipation and a good marketing push, Sony‘s The Dark Tower opened weakly barely winning the weekend box office in the softest weekend at the domestic box office since early April.

The film opened with an estimated $19.5 million domestically and $8 million at the foreign box office. With a budget of just $60 million that’s not horrible, but it’s also not that great. The film was to kick off a multi-platorm franchise but with an opening such as this one has to wonder how that might change. The film is the second largest opening for a Stephen King adaptation.

Dark Tower has just 18% on RottenTomatoes and received a “B” CinemaScore. It was mostly male with 58% and 68% were over the age of 25.

In a close second place was Dunkirk which added $17.6 million to its domestic total dropping just 34% in its third weekend. It now has a domestic total of $133.6 million and has earned $314.2 million worldwide so far.

In third place was The Emoji Movie which added $12.35 million to its domestic total with a 50% drop. It has earned $49.5 million domestically and $62.2 million worldwide.

Girls Trip is a trip folks want to take coming in fourth place and dropping just 42% in its third weekend. The film added $11.4 million to its total and stands at $85.4 million. The film is outpacing Bridesmaid so should wind up doing a bit better than that film when it’s theatrical run is over.

Rounding out the top five was Kidnap which brough in $10.2 million. It received a “B+” CinemaScore with an audience 63% female and 73% over the age of 25.

When it comes to comic adaptations….

Spider-Man: Homecoming came in sixth place adding $8.8 million to its total to bring it to $294.9 million domestically. Worldwide the film has earned $670.9 million which still has it dead last when it comes to worldwide earnings but it’s fourth when it comes to domestic (not adjusted for inflation).

Atomic Blonde dropped to seventh place just behind Spidey adding $8.2 million to its total to bring its domestic cume to $34.1 million on a $30 million budget. Worldwide the film has earned $45.8 million.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets continues to struggle adding $2.4 million to its domestic total. So far its earned $36.1 million and worldwide it has earned just $65.6 million on a $177.2 million budget.

Wonder Woman added $2.4 million to its total to bring its domestic total to $399.5 million. The film has also earned $393.9 million at the foreign box office for a worldwide total of $793.4 million.

Finally, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 added $445,000 to its domestic total to bring that to $388.4 million. Worldwide the film has earned $861.3 million.

We’ll be back in an hour to take a deeper dive into how comic adaptations are doing at the box office in 2017.

Where the Data Ranks 2017’s Comic Book Films. Atomic Blonde Debuts

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Atomic Blonde opened up this past weekend, the latest comic adaptation, based on the series published by Oni Press. With expectations that the film would open around $20 million, it fell short with just $18.6 million. Still, with a $30 million budget, the film will be fine in the long run and probably turn a profit.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets continues to struggle standing at just $30.6 million domestically in two weeks. With a budget of $209 million, the movie will need a miracle. The film has made a bit over $25 million at the foreign box office and opens in China on August 25.

Spider-Man: Homecoming continues to do well with a worldwide gross of $633.8 million. I say well, because while that number’s impressive it’s short the $766.2 million average Spider-Man films earn. It will likely be the lowest earning Spider-Man film to date.

Wonder Woman continues to impress and is on its way to $400 domestically, just the 27th film to do so. The movie has earned $786 million, the second highest amount for a DC movie universe film. However, due to its much lower budget, the film has the highest gross to budget return.

Wonder Woman is also driving the gap between earning averages for the Marvel and DC adaptations and helping it catch up in a way. On average DC films earn $335.5 million domestically while Marvel earns $308.2 million. Internationally, Marvel rules with $476.9 million and DC lags behind with $432.8 million.

Already, the year is an interesting one with three clear successes and a whole lot of mixed otherwise. Wonder Woman, Logan and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 have done well this year, The LEGO Batman Movie and Smurfs: The Lost Village, and Atomic Blonde are in that debatable area, and Valerian, Wilson and Ghost in the Shell are generally disappointments. Spider-Man: Homecoming, we’ll wait and see.

Here’s where this year’s movie crop stands as far as the actual numbers (numbers have dipped due to a new film opening):

Total Domestic Gross: $1.599 billion
Total International Gross: $2.031 billion
Worldwide Gross: $3.630 billion
Total Reported Budgets: $1.115 million
Total “Profit”: $2.515 billion

Average Domestic Gross: $159.9 million
Average International Gross: $225.7 million
Average: Worldwide Gross: $363.0 million
Average Budget: $111.5 million
Average Profit: $251.5 million

Below is where the films released stand when it comes to being compared to this year’s averages. Those in green are above average while those below are red.

Dunkirk Holds at #1, Barely Holding Off Emojis

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Dunkirk repeated in first place at the box office this past weekend bringing in an estimated $28.1 million at the domestic box office to bring its total to $102.8 million. At the foreign box office the film has earned $131.3 million to bring its total to $234.1 in just two weeks.

But… the film was barely in first place holding off The Emoji Movie which, despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, managed to come in second earning $25.7 million in its first week. With a budget of just $50 million, the film has a solid start and I’m sure we can expect a sequel down the road. Interestingly, the film played to a majority female audience 52% with 64% under the age of 25. So families and tweens?

Dropping to third was Girls Trip which added an impressive $20.1 million to its total to bring it to $65.5 million domestically and $67 million worldwide. With a budget of just $19 million, this one will absolutely get a sequel down the road.

In fourth place was another new film Atomic Blonde, the latest comic to be turned movie. That movie earned $18.6 million domestically and $6 million at the foreign box office. That might not seem like a great start but the film’s budget is just $30 million, so in its first week it has almost returned its entire budget. Still, there’s been a big push for the film and it failed to catch on with the female audience like Wonder Woman did, instead playing to 51% male. It was expected to bring in about $20 million.

Rounding out the top five was Spider-Man: Homecoming which added $13.5 million to its domestic total to bring it to $278.4 million and so far it has earned $633.8 million worldwide. The film will end up making about what all of the various Spider-Man films average.

When it comes to comic move adaptations….

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets earned $6.8 million to bring its domestic total to $30.6 million. With a budget of $177.2 million, the movie can only be called a flop.

Wonder Woman added $3.5 million to its domestic total to bring that to $395.4 million and $786 million worldwide.

Finally, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 added $293,000 to its domestic total and now stands at $860.6 million with a DVD release just a few weeks away.

We’ll be back in an hour with even more info about this year’s comic movie adaptations!

Movie Review: Atomic Blonde

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atomic_blonde_posterMix source material graphic novel The Coldest City with classic thrillers like The French Connection, add in some modern Hong Kong-inspired action sequences and killer-thrillers like John Wick, and set it to the soundtrack of a 1989 Berlin discotheque, and you have Atomic Blonde.

It’s a perfect cocktail of fun, sexy, cool, and brutal as MI-6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) combs through Berlin on assignment to find a secret dossier that details all the identities and dirty laundry of secret agents around the world on all sides of the Cold War. It’s literally the weeks before the Berlin Wall is about to fall, making it even more dangerous as both sides are playing as though they have nothing left to lose.

Complicating matters is Britain’s station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) who has gone native, engaging in smuggling and information brokering beyond his normal job duties. Lorraine is also tasked with using the hunt for the list to uncover a mole within the agency who has been passing information to the Soviets. Further complicating things is French agent Delphine LaSalle (Sofia Boutella), with whom things get too close, and too personal, for Lorraine.

The film is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Scenes are framed like comic book panels, and the cold blue and grey color palate — punctuated by the occasional stark neon — help evoke  the specific time and place of the film’s setting.

What helps set this even more in late 80’s Cold War Berlin is the film’s soundtrack. A heavy industrial synth backbone of Depeche Mode, Ministry, and New Order are offset by the tenderness of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry,” which takes on an added emotional resonance as a sort of love theme in the film. Depeche Mode reminds us “Sweet little girl/I’d prefer/ you behind the wheel/ and me the passenger” which becomes a sort of feminist anthem as we recognize that songs is now about Lorraine and Percival– and also gets us amped for a cool action sequence. Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran” is used perfectly in an eye-popping, jaw-dropping chase scene, and David Bowie makes not one, but two appearances on the soundtrack, giving the film its sort of ethos of “putting out fires with gasoline.”

As amazing and perfect as the soundtracks to Baby Driver and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were, this is the soundtrack of the year.

One of the other most fun elements in the film is how it’s told– completely in flashback, with a beat-up, post-mission Lorraine being debriefed by her MI-6 handler (a perpetually uncomfortable-looking Toby Jones) and a senior official from the CIA (an incredibly annoyed John Goodman). The interplay between Theron, Jones, and Goodman is masterful and is the apotheosis of the beautiful character work that prevents this film from being simply a bloody spy thriller. We also see Lorraine holding back key details, letting us know she isn’t exactly the most reliable of narrators. This draws heavily from other great thrillers that use this device like The Usual Suspects, but also manages to be its own film.

One of the things that makes this so unique is its portrayal of a completely bisexual protagonist. And unlike James Bond who seems to hold little sentiment for his various romantic conquests who end up dead, Lorraine is motivated by her feelings for those she has fallen for. But, she’s still a kickass spy who puts her business first– we just also see a very human emotional toll this takes.

So much of the credit for this film need to go to director David Leitch. Best known as a stunt and second unit director who also cut his teeth on John Wick, Leitch is able to bring a dazzling and unique visual style sorely lacking in so many blockbusters. He also puts together a hell of a fight scene, one where we as the audience feel the weight of every blow and crunch of every bone and sinew. It helps that he’s drawing from The Coldest City graphic novel, whose authors get a script credit, to bring such a great story to life. But he does it with such great visual and auditory panache that this becomes one of the best movies of 2017, and a super cool way to chill out during the dog days of summer.

Go see this, then spend hours with your friends coming up with slash/fiction where Lorraine, John Wick, and the characters from Kingsman all meet up and fight each other.

4 out of 5 stars

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