Sunday, August 18, 2019

Good Boys is #1, Hobbs & Shaw #2 at box office



For the weekend of August 16-18, 2019, Good Boys managed to emerge from a crowded field as the #1 movie. The “Superbad for 12-year-olds” comedy gives Jacob Tremblay (Room, Wonder) his first hit where he stands on his own two feet, and it showed an audience for comedy can still be found.

Of the other new releases, The Angry Birds Movie 2 fizzled out of the gate, despite better reviews than its predecessor. 47 Meters Down 2, which doesn’t have anything to do with the first movie, didn’t perform well either, though the low budget means it won’t lose money. Blinded by the Light didn’t go anywhere. I can’t help but think this movie should have been pushed to next year after Yesterday was a sleeper hit. Where’d You Go Bernadette was going to flop no matter when it was released.

Of the holdovers, Hobbs & Shaw had a respectable third week. Its global haul isn’t as much as previously tracked, and it looks like it will be profitable, but not as big as Universal needed it to be. The Lion King will cross the $500 million domestic mark later this week. (It’s over $1.4 billion worldwide.) Why is Disney doing live-action remakes of all of their animated films? This is why. It may feel like the cash-grab of all the late 1990’s-early 2000’s straight-to-DVD animated sequels they did, but same result. Profits.



Opens August 23
ANGEL HAS FALLEN with Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Piper Perabo.
READY OR NOT with Samara Weaving, Andie MacDowell and Adam Brody.