Tag Archives: night school

Venom Delivers an October Opening Weekend Record

Posted on by

It was a record weekend at the box office. Sony‘s Venom delivered an estimated $80 million opening topping the previous October best opening by more than $20 million. That opening is better than Marvel’s $75.8 million opening for Ant-Man and the Wasp earlier this year and just behind Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s $84.4 million.

The film appears to be bullet proof from reviews as it received largely negative ones from critics and a “B+” CinemaScore from the opening day audience. The audience was 59% male and 36% of the audience was age 25 years or older. That’s much younger audience than expected and indicates kids are driving this film’s success.

Internationally, the film opened with $125.2 million from 58 markets for a record October opening of over $205 million. The film opens in France next weekend, Japan in November, and China’s release has yet to be dated.

Without superhero competition for the foreseeable future, it’s unknown what the drop will be in the second weekend. But, with a budget of just $100 million, the film is already looking like it’ll be quite profitable and another success for Sony’s Spider-Man franchise which earn on average $318.8 million domestically, $488.4 million internationally, and $807.2 million worldwide. The film’s budget though is less than half the average Spider-Man film which average $209.5 million.

In second place was A Star is Born which opened with an estimated $41.3 million. The film received an “A” CinemaScore and with its 66% female audience and 86% age 25 or older, the film should have some legs for some time.

In third place was Smallfoot which dropped 35% from the previous weekend with an estimated $14.9 million. It has earned just shy of $43 million after ten days domestically. It also added $11.7 million internationally and has crossed $75 million worldwide.

Night School came in fourth with a 55% drop in its second weekend. It earned an estimated $12.3 million to bring the domestic total to $46.7 million. Internationally it also earned $3.4 million for a foreign total of $12 million an global total near $60 million.

Rounding out the top five was The House With a Clock in Its Walls which dropped 42% in its third weekend earning an estimated $7.3 million for a domestic total that stands at $55 million.

When it comes to other comic films…

Ant-Man and the Wasp held steady at #27 earning an estimated $132,000 to bring its domestic total to $216.4 million.

We’ll be back in an hour for a deeper dive into this year’s comic adaptations.

Night School and Smallfoot Top the Box Office with One Two

Posted on by

Night School topped the weekend box office earning an estimated $28 milion. That was short of some forecasts but it’s a solid start for the film which cost only $29 million to produce. It also received an “A-” CinemaScore and had mixed reviews from critics. The film played to an audience that was 50/50 male/female and 59% were aged 25 or older.

Internationally the film earned an estimated $5.5 million from 19 markets.

The film should do quite fine in the long run with little competition for now and generally positive word of mouth. Add in a low cost for the budget and the movie should turn a nice profit.

In second place was another debut, Smallfoot which met expectations. The film earned an estimated $23 million over the three days. The studio said they expected a debut in the $20-25 million range. The film received an “A-” CinemaScore and played to an audience that was 55% female and 52% of the audience coming in at 25 years or older.

Internationally the film opened in 49 markets and earned an estimated $14 million.

Third place went to The House With a Clock on Its Walls which added an estimated $12.5 million to its total to bring its domestic take to $44.8 million off a $42 million budget after two weeks.

Fourth place was held by A Simple Favor which brought in an estimated $6.6 million to bring its domestic total to $43.1 million after three weeks.

Rounding out the top five was The Nun which added an estimated $5.4 million to its domestic total to bring that to $109 million. The film also earned $16.2 million overseas to push the international total to $221 million and worldwide to over $330 million. It’s the highest grossing film in the Conjuring universe.

In comic films…

Ant-Man and the Wasp slipped just one spot to come in at #24 for the weekend after 13 weeks. The film added an estimated $259,000 to its domestic total to bring that to $216.1 million.

We’ll be back in an hour for a deeper dive into this year’s comic film adaptation.s

Movie Review: Night School

Posted on by

night school posterWe’ve all seen Night School before, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. While the new Kevin Hart film feels a little bit paint by numbers, it still delivers laughs and highlights the comedic talents of it’s amazing cast, chief among whom is Tiffany Haddish who owns every scene she is in.

Our story centers around Teddy Walker (who should just be named Kevin Hart), an extremely successful BBQ salesman in Atlanta. He’s about to propose to his girlfriend, Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke who you may recognize from the CW’s Arrowverse shows as Vixen) but he has a major secret — he is a high school dropout who is living paycheck-to-paycheck in order to impress her with money that he doesn’t have. When hijinks eventually ensue, he finds himself in need of a new job and his best option is to go back to school pursue his GED at night school at his previous high school to get a job in finance with his best friend Marvin (Ben Schwartz — yes! Jean Ralphio!).

However in a bit of irony, the school’s principal is now the kid who he bullied in high school (Taran Killam), who looks to return the favor with some humiliation of his own. Luckily for him the night Schools teacher is the unorthodox but strict Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), who won’t give up on either him or any of the other misfits in his night school class. Oh, and those miscreants? Rob Riggle, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Al Madrigal, Romany Malco, and Fat Joe— who joins class via Skype from prison.

This movie has a lot of jokes, and most of them are funny. The the script seems to take a shotgun approach of trying to pack as many little jokes in as possible and hope that some of them hit. Luckily a number of them do, mostly because of grade A comedic talent, especially Haddish, who may be one of the most underrated comedic talents in Hollywood right now.

Unfortunately, the film just doesn’t know exactly where it’s trying to go. There’s an extended dance break where they go to the school’s prom, because I guess why not? There’s also a side plot involving Hart working at a Christian themed chicken joint which, while funny, doesn’t really fit anywhere else into the film. But oh well. It’s mostly funny.

Hart also does something really smart here which is allow himself to be the fast-talking flim-flam artist, but he still mostly a straight man. This allows Haddish to take the lead and his supporting actors to do most of the heavy lifting.

The film almost takes a turn as a sort of  heist film in a strange Act II break when they decide to rob the principal’s office to get the answers to their midterm test. Even though this mostly works, it’s still just a very strange turn for the movie which doesn’t really seem to know what it wants to do.

Speaking of not knowing what it wants to do, the opening of the film very clearly sets up a sibling rivalry with a twin sister for Hart to deal with, and then drops her the entire rest of the film.

The plot is fairly thin, the character arcs are fairly thin, and you can see where everything is going from miles away. But at least the jokes are mostly funny along the way.

However, it sometimes devolves into more shocking or simple gross-out gags and humor, which just doesn’t work. Like at all. In their attempts to justify their R-rating, they really don’t do anything good with it.

What is truly unfortunate is that films like this will unfortunately be marketed as “Urban” (read: black only) films. It’s incredibly troubling that more and more often films are only marketed to a certain segment of the population, even though there’s nothing inherently racial about the film.

There are a few incredibly funny jokes about being “woke” that somehow involve robots. There’s also a very funny call out of Principal Stewart using “black voice” which makes an excellent counterpoint to this summer’s breakout hit Sorry to Bother You and their use of “white voice.” Though nowhere near as brilliant, they’re talking about some of the same things, but drawing attention to the fact that when white people “code switch” they do it to pretend to be “cool” rather than it being a matter of survival and identity for others. It’s an issue much better dealt with in the upcoming The Hate U Give, but it’s nice to see a comedy trying at broader social comedy.

The biggest problem is we’ve seen this movie dozens of times before. However if you are a fan of Kevin Hart and this cast, you will get some laughs out of this. But if there’s one reason to see this, it’s Haddish. Hopefully this will be another crossover success for her like Girls Trip and we will get to see more of her– at least as much as we do of Kevin Hart.

2.5 out of 5 stars