Elysium
Box Office Weekend: The Family Can’t Whack Insidious Chapter 2
Unlike Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Riddick will not be enjoying three weeks at the top of the box office. In only its second week, the Vin Diesel sci-fi thriller got knocked to third place with an estimated $7 million. In its place, Insidious Chapter 2 rallied the box office to spooky effect, bringing in an estimated $41.1 million. Even with critics claiming it is nowhere near as effective as the ori...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Riddick Kicks Butler (from the top spot)
Three weeks is a long time to hold onto the top spot in the movie business, but all good things must come to an end. Lee Daniels’ The Butler came in second with an estimated $8.9 million, a far cry from the top winner, Riddick, which took first with an estimated $18.7 million. Even so, Riddick led a slow post-Labor Day weekend, and it could not manage to make back its relatively low $38 million co...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: The Butler Scores a Four-Day Three-Peat
Taking out Labor Day earnings, Lee Daniels’ The Butler would have fallen to a respectable second place finish. But some extra income gave it a second (or third) life and the top spot for the third week in a row with an estimated $20 million. It’s nearest competition, the concert film One Direction: This is Us would have been the top finisher if not for the holiday weekend, earning an estimated $18...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: The Butler Buttles to the Top Once More
Well, perhaps “buttle” is not a real word, but the money Lee Daniels’ The Butler is bringing in at the box office most certainly is. At an estimated $17 million, it won the weekend handily, seconded only by We’re the Millers, which made an estimated $13.5 million. Nothing else even came close; falling well short of the $10 million mark (a bad sign considering three of them are new). The Mortal Ins...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Other Debuts Get Served by The Butler
Despite (or because of) Oprah Winfrey’s recent controversy in Switzerland, her new film, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, made the strongest bid for the box office with an estimated $25 million, almost enough to give the $30 million film a profit over the weekend (and get in good with critics). However, the two other big new releases of the week fared much less successfully; Kick-Ass 2 received poor revie...[Read More]
Box Office Weekend: Filmgoers Give Their Halves to the Have-Nots as Elysium Steals the Box Office
Although not receiving quite the high praise lavished on his previous District 9, director Neill Blomkamp still did well enough with his next outing Elysium, taking the top spot and earning an estimated $30.4 million. It still has much ground to make up, its $115 million budget perhaps as far out of reach as the film’s space station, but it was still enough to hold three other debuts to second pla...[Read More]
Trailer Trashin’: Neill Blomkamp is Back with Elysium
We’re midway through April, and I hope that everyone made it through tax day with their sanity intact. And there’s only about two weeks left before the summer movie season finally gets underway. This week’s Trailer Trashin’ examines our first look at one of my most anticipated lower-profile films of the summer, writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium. Premise: In the...[Read More]