By Chris Kavan - 03/01/20 at 11:33 PM CT
It was bound to happen - and horror fans can now rejoice for the fact there is finally a worthy film for 2020. The Invisible Man kicked had a scary good opening, with both critics and audiences responding well to the socially-grounded horror film. It was also a good weekend for Anime, as My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising hit the top five, while an expanding Impractical Jokers also had a decent weekend rising to the top 10. Things are looking good ahead of a busy next weekend, where we'll get four new wide release films.
1) THE INVISIBLE MAN
With horror suffering this year, the genre was due for a win. Thanks the combination of a relevant story, terrific casting and a talented director in Leigh Whannell, The Invisible Man delivered that win to the tune of a $29 million opening. Critics were impressed, with the film currently holding at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and audiences followed suit, giving the film a "B+" Cinemascore. That is on the high end for horror, which suggests this mere $7 million film has a bright future ahead of it. And, based on other Blumhouse films that opened to similar numbers (Happy Death Day, Insidious: The Last Key and The Purge: Anarchy), the film is looking at a finish around the $70 million range - though A Quiet Place II could be a factor in where its final numbers lie. It launched to $20.2 million over seas as well. In any case, this looks far and away to be the best of Universal's classic monsters revived (even if the Dark Universe never comes back). Casting Elizabeth Moss certainly helps, as well as crafting a story that is filled with plenty of chills, but still carries a powerful message in the age of #MeToo. Whatever the case, I'm just happy that horror is back and hopefully means good things to come.
2)
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Sonic is still running strong, adding $16 million over the weekend (down about 39%) and crossing the $125 million mark with a new $128.2 million total. The film is very close to topping the $131 million of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to become the second-highest grossing video game adaptation of all time. Even if it falls hard to Onward next weekend, there is little doubt it will be able to surpass Detective Pikachu ($144 million) in the long run to take the title outright. It has earned $265 million worldwide at this point, so that pretty much solidified a sequel in my mind - and we'll probably see a few more video game familiar faces the second time around - but my main hope is that this means we'll continue to get better and better video game adaptations in the future as well.
3)
CALL OF THE WILD
With $13.2 million over the weekend, Call of the Wild took a near 47% tumble, raising its total to $45.8 million, as it looks to cross $50 million in a few days. Such a total wouldn't be too bad - if the film hadn't cost $110 million. Like Dolittle before it, Call of the Wild is going to lose a good chunk of change for the mere fact it just cost too damn much and was released in a fairly crowded family market (that's not going to get any better). No amount of Harrison Ford or CGI dog can save it from being a more profitable film and while it isn't quite a big of disaster as Dolittle (it will likely wind up near the $75 million dometstic/$135 million global), it still isn't going to make money for Disney. But, hey, at least it will help round out their streaming options. It expect this to collapse even more in the face of Onward and will likely bet out of theaters before March ends.
4)
MY HERO ACADEMIA: HEROES RISING
I didn't even know this (or Impractical Jokers) was going wide this weekend - hence my ignoring it in the weekend preview. Well, the joke's on me, because anime still brings out the crowds and while I'm not personally familiar with the My Hero Academia anime myself, plenty of people must consider it pretty good as it landed in fourth place with a $5.1 million opening ($8.4 million including early previews). It made more over its first five days than the first My Hero Academia film made in its entire run (Two Heroes earned $5.75 million total). For FUNimation, it stands as the studio's second best grossing film, topping Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' ($8 million) while remaining far behind Dragon Ball Super: Broly ($30.7 million). Still, for what remains a decidedly niche offering, this has to be seen as a pretty good win. I often forget just how popular anime is among general audiences, especially as my own interest has been waning, but it is nice to know such a strong following results in some impressive numbers.
5)
BAD BOYS FOR LIFE
Once again, Bad Boys has outlasted the competition (Birds of Prey and The Boy II both came in ahead of Bad Boys last weekend) to hold on to its fifth place spot with a $4.3 million weekend (down just 26.4%) and a new $197.3 million total. Combined with the $4.9 million it earned overseas, Bad Boys for Life has now earned $408 million worldwide - a mere $8 million behind the worldwide total for the first two films combined. It's quite possible Bad Boys will remain the highest-grossing movie of 2020 into summer - depending on how Onward and No Time to Die play out and may not be challenged until Black Widow in May. No matter what, I think this will remain among the top give grossing films of the year as it should top $200 million by next week and still looks like it will stick around for awhile longer.
Outside the top five: Impractical Jokers expanded into wide release, adding over 1500 theaters from its 357 limited debut and jumped 36% from 11th to 7th place with a $3.5 million weekend and new $6.6 million total. Considering it's a UK-based comedy following a group of merry pranksters who are trying to redeem themselves - I'll consider this a pretty good showing.
Ahead of its wide debut next weekend, Onward played a Leap Year sneak preview in select theaters and sold out pretty much every show to the tune of a $650,000 head start. We'll see how Pixar's new film fares with more general audiences, but I'm guessing it should do pretty good.
In milestone news, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey added $4.1 million (6th place) which was enough for the film to cross the $75 million mark with a new $78.7 million total. I'm guessing the studio was hoping for roughly double that amount by now, but I still think the DCEU is on the right track despite this stumble.
Neon's Parasite just crossed the $50 million mark with a $1.5 million weekend ($12th place) and new $51.5 million total. It is close to passing Hero ($54 million) and Life is Beautiful ($57 million) to become the third highest-grossing foreign language film of all time.
Next week looks brings a slew of new wide releases: Pixar's Onward looks to lead the pack, joined by Ben Affleck's drama The Way Back, Anya Taylor-Joy's updated Emma and a story centered around a milking cow, First Cow, looking to score as well.
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