Ballerina Dominika Egorova is recruited to 'Sparrow School' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. But her first mission, targeting a CIA agent, threatens to unravel the security of both nations.
Photo by Photo credit: Peter Mountain - © 2018 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. opened Game Night yesterday as well, earning an okay $5.6 million on Friday, including $1m in Thursday previews. This ensemble comedy got a boost right at the last minute from rather positive reviews, which is something of a rarity for a major studio comedy these days. And we critics are right. It milks a good premise (a game night among friends becomes a real-world mystery thriller) and a strong cast (Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnussen, Lamorne Morris, Kyle Bunbury and Jesse Plemons) for a good time at the movies.
If it plays like a conventional adult-skewing comedy, we’re looking at a Fri-Sun frame of around $15 million. That would be a decent start for the $37m-budgeted New Line flick, and a promising sign that the House That Freddy Built can still open movies outside of the horror genre. The film earned a B+ from CinemaScore and played 70% over-35 years old. It also played 56% female. Women gave the film an A- while men and women under-25 gave it an A rating.
WB clearly likes what they got from directors John Francis Daley Jonathan Goldstein since they snatched them up to direct their long-gestating The Flash movie. Maybe the third time is the charm for that seemingly doomed project. As for Game Night, it's very funny and the kids giving it an A grade have the right idea.
Paramount/Viacom Inc. sold off most of the international distribution rights for Alex Garland’s Annihilation to Netflix a few months ago. To the extent that they got much of their $40 million budget back, Paramount and Skydance are on the hook for domestic distribution. Oddly enough, Alex Garland’s acclaimed but unapologetically challenging sci-fi horror freak-out is the sort of movie that can do better overseas than in North America. mother! got sacked in North America ($17m) but earned $27m overseas, while Arrival earned 50/50 in late 2016/early 2017 for a $203m worldwide total on a $47m budget.
With negative test screening results, a director who had “final cut,” and an uncertain theatrical landscape for this sort of fare, I understand the desire to cut losses and avoid another high profile box office whiff. Even with a cast made up of Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tuva Novotny, Gina Rodriguez and Oscar Isaac and rave reviews, I’d argue Annihilation is playing in US theaters is for image-related reasons. It’s not exactly becoming of a once-grand movie studio, one that has been struggling for the last two years, to shuffle a movie like Annihilation onto Netflix while they slot a Sonic the Hedgehog movie for summer 2019.
Since the movie is much better than Cloverfield Paradox, they let Netflix take the Bad Robot prequel whole-hog and kept at least domestic theatrical for the sci-fi flick. The notion of studios partnering with Netflix to lessen risk may actually be a net-positive, even if it further lets the streaming giant into the proverbial henhouse. But much of the chat around the movie has been about the Netflix deal and an odd whitewashing controversy (Natalie Portman’s character is Asian in the book, but you don’t find that out until the sequel which wasn’t in print when Garland was adapting the first novel).
Annihilation opened yesterday with just $3.8 million on Friday in 2,012 theaters, including $900,000 in Thursday previews. That’s lower than Sony’s R-rated Life ($4.4m) in March of 2017, which eventually lead to a $12.5m debut weekend. Depending on legs and audience polling (that this arty chiller earned a "C" instead of an "F" from CinemaScore is a credit to American moviegoers), we’re either looking at a weekend like Chappie ($4.5m/$13.3m) or Transcendence ($4.8m/$10.8m). So expect an $11m Fri-Sun frame.
That’s not terribly promising, especially with Red Sparrow opening next weekend to provide additional adult-skewing, female-led, R-rated thrills. Depending on the breaks, we’re probably looking at a $20-$25 million domestic total. As tempting as it would be to blame Paramount, there was a time not so long ago when adults saw movies like Annihilation, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot or Jack Reacher: Never Go Back in theaters while their kids saw the kid-friendly tentpoles. Or maybe, once upon a time, adults found time to see both in theaters.
Orion is back as a stand-alone distribution studio, and their first offering is Every Day. The under-$5 million romantic drama, based on a YA novel about an entity who wakes up every morning to find himself in a different body and the young woman who loves him no matter what, debuted on 1,625 theaters with just $1.077m on Friday, including a $115k Thursday preview figure. Marketing was relatively frugal and targeted for this one, so all parties claim they will be happy with the projected $3m debut weekend.
To be fair, I was a little hard on Roadside Attractions’ Forever My Girl last month, only to watch that $3.5m romantic drama leg it to $15.7m from a $4.4m debut weekend. Every Day stars Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys) and a whole host of young men and women as the “hosts” of this body-jumping love interest. I meant to see the film yesterday, but life got in the way so I may catch up on Monday.
Game Night And Spider-Man: Homecoming Have A Funny Connection You Might Spot By Adam Holmes Having made their directing debut with 2015's Vacation, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein's latest directorial endeavor, Game Night, is now screening. Daley and Goldstein were tackling Game Night around the time that Spider-Man: Homecoming, which they wrote, was about to be released. You'd think that a superhero movie about a teenager with arachnid-like powers wouldn't affect the development of a comedy movie about a group of friends investigating a real murder mystery, but as it turns out, Daley and Goldstein came across a location they were eager to use, only to discover it had already been used in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Daley recalled: We were kind of working on this as Spider-Man was gearing up to be released. What's funny is there is a house in it, when we were scouting in Atlanta where we shot and they shot Spider-Man as well. This modern house we wanted to shoot at, and we got there and realized that it was in the film. Michael Keaton's character --- Yes, apparently the house where some of Game Night's shenanigan-filled events take place is the same one where Liz lived in Spider-Man: Homecoming. As those who've seen the Web-Slinger's first MCU movie will remember, Peter Parker went to the house so he could travel to the Midtown High homecoming dance with her, but he was shocked to learn that Liz's dad was Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. The Vulture, the super villain he'd been tussling with in his costumed persona. Take a look at the house in Spider-Man: Homecoming below, that way if you're seeing Game Night soon, it will be recognizable. As Jonathan Goldstein quickly added after John Francis Daley revealed this funny connection between Spider-Man: Homecoming and Game Night to THR, because Atlanta has become such a popular filming location, you're bound to find places that have already appeared in other movies. As Goldstein put it: --- We texted [Spider-Man director] Jon Watts and were like, 'Did you use this in Spider-Man?' 'Yep.' That's the one drawback of Atlanta. Atlanta is becoming film central, so you run into the same location. It is amusing how two completely different movies that John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein worked on managed to accidentally connect with one another. That said, this "modern house" isn't quite at the level as a location like the Hatley Park National Historic Site (which is where projects like X2: X-Men United, Arrow, The Descendants and How to Get Away with Murder have all shot), but give it some time, and maybe the house will edge closer to that kind of popularity. With Game Night now playing in theaters (be sure to read our review), John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are in discussions to direct the DC Extended Universe's Flashpoint movie next. If you're interested in learning what other movies will be released this year, look through our 2018 premiere schedule. Blended From Around The Web Facebook
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Bateman and McAdams star as Max and Annie, whose weekly couples game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's charismatic brother, Brooks (Chandler), arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all part of the game - right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they begin to discover that neither this game - nor Brooks - are what they seem to be. Over the course of one chaotic night, the friends find themselves increasingly in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn. With no rules, no points, and no idea who all the players are, this could turn out to be the most fun they've ever had... or game over.
