Beast, Nope, Fabelmans, Mack and Rita, Vengeance and More in This Week's MPAA Ratings Bulletin

By Chris Kavan - 06/29/22 at 07:43 PM CT

This weekend Elvis barely topped a five-week old Maverick at the box office, as the bombastic Tom Cruise crowd-pleaser blasted past the $1 billion mark on the global scale. Meanwhile, the MPAA has decided this week is the feast instead of famine - and I'm talking full-blown 12-course Michelin Star quality with a whole bunch to cover. But before we get to that, let's see what the weekend brought us.

As the weekend came to a close Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic, starring Austin Butler as the crooner and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, was running neck-and-neck with Tom Cruise and Top Gun: Maverick (in its 5th weekend, no less). In the end, Elvis just managed to squeak by the high-flying action film with a $31.2 million opening. That is the second-best opening for Luhrmann, behind The Great Gatsby's $50.1 million opening back in 2013. The film was certified fresh with a decent, if not spectacular, 78% Fresh but audiences seemed much more inclined to support it with a rock-solid "A-" Cinemascore. An outlier, the main audience for Elvis was decidedly older, with 60% of the audience coming in over 35 and women over 50 making up a good chunk of that demographic. It's a good sign that the box office continues to recover from the lock-down Covid days. If it can keep attracting that audience, Elvis should be able to cruise to a $100 million final tally.

Coming in second, Top Gun: Maverick soared to new heights with a $29.6 million weekend (down a light 33.7%) and giving the film a new $520.8 million domestic total. At this point, it seems like $600 million is probable. With an estimated $484.7 million international, Top Gun: Maverick became just the second film of the Covid era to hit the $1 billion global mark - behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion) and also topped Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the the highest-grossing film of the year both domestic and global. And as icing on the cake, it is also Tom Cruise's highest-grossing film on the global market as well, easily topping Mission: Impossible - Fallout at $791.7 million.

In third place, Jurassic World Dominion took a nearly 55% hit to wind up with a $26.7 million weekend and a new $303 million total. While that is a steep decline, the third entry has proven a hit with audiences - if not so with critics - and adding in $443.9 million overseas has a strong $746.7 million global tally.

In fourth place was the weekend's other new entry, the horror film The Black Phone, with Ethan Hawke playing a delightfully creeptastic mask-wearing, child-kidnapping villain. Opening with $23.6 million, Black Phone came in above expectations and was a hit for a horror film scoring an 84% Fresh from critics as well as a well-earned "B+" from audiences. Although Jordon Peele's Nope is right around the corner, hopefully Black Phone can stick it out to a $50 million or so finish. The film also scored a nice $12.5 million overseas for a global total of $35.8 million. With a light $18 million price tag, the low-budget, high-return horror market it back in Black.

Rounding out the top five, and by far the biggest disappointment in a long time, Pixar's Lightyear fell a hefty 64.1% - easily one of the biggest second-week drop in the company's long animated history. While the film scored solid enough numbers, it's by-the-books story and head-scratching place in the Toy Story universe hasn't translated to much enthusiasm. With just $18.1 million for the weekend, Lightyear stands at just $89.2 million and while it should cross the $100 million mark - even with Minions on the horizon, it's not going to do much more than that. Internationally the film hasn't fared any better with just $63.6 million for a rather tepid $152.4 million worldwide total.

With July 4th adding in an extra day, this weekend brings us Minions: The Rise of Gru, which should have no problem topping the box office.

On the ratings front there is a lot to cover - horror, action, drama, comedy, romance - it's all here and the flood gates have opened.

MPAA Official Logo

First up, Jordon Peele has turned out to be one of the most interesting and effective horror directors as of late. Get Out and Us being highly successful while covering topics most others wouldn't want to acknowledge, let alone try to get on film. His next surprise comes in the form of Nope which, for the longest time, was a big tease without much to go on other than we knew it was something about aliens, a black-owned horse training ranch and the small town surrounding it. The latest trailer, however, gave us a better understanding of what's going on (I guess for the better, but I was kind of hoping for the less is more approach... sigh). In this case, Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya play the siblings of the said black-owned horse ranch, Emerald and OJ Haywood and, after realizing they are experiencing their own close encounters, decide to get aliens on film in hopes of selling the footage for a boatload of cash. They track down noted director Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) along with techie Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) to set up their world-changing footage. Only one problem - it seems that anyone who actually looks at said aliens is disappeared or something ominous to that effect. Steven Yeun is on hand as a local who manages to escape with a warning - but will anyone heed his call? There doesn't seem to be much social commentary here - but we'll see. It still does look like a fun ride and I haven't been let down by Peele yet, so I'll be giving this one a whirl. Rated R for language throughout and some violence/bloody images.

If you want to capture the hearts and minds of the award-season voters, nothing quite does the trick like a heart-warming but dramatic biography. This year it seems like The Fabelmans. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film is based on his own childhood growing up in Arizona and while it's only semi-autobiographical, it looks to be setting itself up nicely for an Oscar run. It helps that the cast features some heavy hitters: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle and Julia Butters look to be the main family-centric cast with Oakes Fegley, Gabriel Bateman, Nicolas Cantu, Judd Hirsch, Sam Rechner and Chloe East rounding out the rest. Oh, and David Lynch is also on hand for some reason - but I bet it's a good one. In any case, Spielberg has rarely delivered a misstep in his long, varied career and hopefully the glasses aren't too rose-tinted to craft a meaningful story out of ones own life. Rated PG-13 for some strong language, thematic elements, brief violence and drug use.

I love me a good mystery - better if the film can balance the dark with a bit of levity (see Knives Out for an excellent example) and The Office star B.J. Novak is throwing his hat into the ring with Vengeance. Novak both directs and stars in the film where he plays a New Yorker who enjoyed a casual fling with Texas girl and is blindsided with her death - and also the fact her family thinks he was much more committed to her than he knew. While ruled a drug overdose, conspiracy and questions surrounding the death abound and, seeing an opportunity to spin this into a compelling podcast, friend Eloise (Issa Rae) convinces him to say down south and investigate leads. While at first passing it off as a lark, it soon becomes apparent there may be something to the rumors - and things start to get dangerous. Novak has a good cast to work with - Dove Cameron, Boyd Holbrook, Ashton Kutcher, Isabella Amara, J. Smith-Cameron and Lio Tipton for starters. The trailer certainly makes this look like something different and I'm hoping it will also be something good. Rated R for language and brief violence.

Man vs. nature - specifically the many animals that make it up, has been a tried and tested method from Jaws to The Edge to The Grey - and so many others. Now Idris Elba is ready to face the challenge with Beast. Elba plays recently widowed Dr. Nate Samuels who, in order to connect to his two teen daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) decides to return to the game reserve in South Africa where he met his wife. Old family friend and wildlife biologist Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley) helps run the place. But things take a turn when a rogue lion enters the picture - intent on proving there is only place for one apex predator in the area. With shades of Ghost in the Darkness, Beast seems like a more claustrophobic approach with a smaller cast and tighter spots to deal with. Still, you can't go too wrong with a good ole man vs. insert animal here picture. Rated R for violent content, bloody images and some language.

Speaking of tried and true classics, the old body-switch has been around since Freaky Friday back in '76 and has given us a bunch of twists including finding oneself older (Big, 13 Going on 30) and gender-swaps with a serial killer (Freaky). The upcoming Mack & Rita takes the former approach as 30-year-old writer Mack (Elizabeth Lail) reluctantly agrees to attend a bachelorette party in Palm Springs only to find herself transformed into her future 70-year-old self "Aunt" Rita (Diane Keaton). But instead of freaking out, she finds this change lets her be free from her former constraints and becomes a social media sensation while also starting up a relationship with dog-sitter Jack (Dustin Milligan). The film co-stars Wendie Malick, Loretta Devine, Taylour Paige, Simon Rex, Nicole Byer and Patti Harrison. Based on the premise I'm guessing it's shooting for a mainly female audience here, but it could play very well to an underserved demographic. Rated PG-13 for some drug use, sexual references and language.

Finally, to round out this impressive abundance of ratings we find ourselves with a Ticket to Paradise. The film follows good friends Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) and Wren (Billie Lourd) who travel to Bali on a post-graduation celebration. Out of the blue, Lily falls for Balinese local, Gede (Maxime Bouttier) and decides to get married. But her parents (George Clooney and Julia Roberts) get wind of this rash decision and will do anything to stop her from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago. I'm guessing love wins out in the end - both to the young lovers and the bitter, old couple. That's just the way these movies seem to play out, right? Still, I think women and couples will be won over and the stars will bring out the best. Rated PG-13 for some strong language and brief suggestive material.

That's a big update but you can check out the full MPAA Ratings Bulletin below for everything else:

BEAST

Rated R for violent content, bloody images and some language.


BREAKING

Rated PG-13 for some violent content, and strong language.


CAVE RESCUE

Rated PG-13 for some strong language.


CHANG CAN DUNK

Rated PG for language and some thematic elements.


CONTROL

Rated R for some strong violence, and language throughout.


ENOLA HOLMES 2

Rated PG-13 for some violence and bloody images.


THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER

Rated PG-13 for some drug material.


THE FABELMANS

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, thematic elements, brief violence and drug use.


MACK & RITA

Rated PG-13 for some drug use, sexual references and language.


ME TIME

Rated R for some sexual material, language and brief drug use.


NOPE

Rated R for language throughout and some violence/bloody images.


TICKET TO PARADISE

Rated PG-13 for some strong language and brief suggestive material.


VENGEANCE

Rated R for language and brief violence.


WAKE UP

Rated R for some violent content and brief drug use.


WILDCAT

Rated R for language.

Comments

Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
  
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
  
Are you sure you want to delete this blog?