Director Rueben Fleischer is back! After a rough run following his 2013 bomb, Gangster Squad, Fleischer’s new flick, Uncharted, is the biggest movie in the country, taking the No. 1 spot at the U.S. box office last weekend, selling $51 million over its first three days of release.
Reviews are pretty lousy, but, according to critic Mark LaSalle, “Uncharted isn’t a classic, but for an action movie coming out in the doldrums of February, it’s practically Citizen Kane.”
Word of mouth is strong for this flick, which features Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Antonio Banderas. I’m not sold on Holland being much more than a cute boy, but I’ll give this one a try. The real point of interest for me is Fleischer, who has made a few comedies I really, really enjoy, including Zombieland, 30 Minutes or Less and Venom.
Hopefully this success gets Fleischer back to a place where he’s more than a director-for-hire, and can get back to doing passion projects.
Also at the Box
Channing Tatum vehicle Dog, took the No. 2 spot at the domestic box office, selling a decent $18 million over its first three days of release.
Looks like the kind of movie we should all watch at home someday when we’re bored out of our minds and there’s nothing else to watch. Reviews? Not so hot.
Tatum is charming and fun to watch, and I love dogs, but this one does not look like something anyone needs to race out to the theater during a pandemic to watch.
Spider-Man: No Way Home continued to fill seats, selling another $8.8 million, upping its worldwide sales total to $1.83 billion, making it the sixth-highest grossing film ever, worldwide. It is currently is the third-highest selling domestic film ever, with an amazing $771 million. Wow, y’all really like watching these same stories over and over again, don’t ya?
Kenneth Branagh’s ensemble piece, Death on the Nile, took the No. 4 spot at the box, selling $7.18 million over its second weekend, upping its 10-day sales total to just over $25 million. I’m just gonna say it: Branagh is a very mediocre director. Not sure I’ll ever watch this one, no matter how bored I get.
Rounding out last weekend’s top 5 was Jackass Forever, which sold $6.2 million. So far, it has made $47 million in the U.S. and $61 million worldwide. Not bad for a bunch of guys just screwing around and making each other laugh. Can’t lie, I think these movies are incredibly fun.
New This Week
Oof. Talk about a lame slate for new films.
This weekend will see the wide release of only one film, the comedy-horror Studio 666, starring Janne Ortega, Will Forte, Whitney Cummings, and Leslie Grossman along with the Foo Fighters. Eww. How this got a weekend to itself makes no sense to me.
Musical Cyrano will finally start to trickle out, along with Moon Manor, Topside, Let Me Be Me, The Desperate Hour, and, once again, a re-release of The Godfather.
There’s a reason this time of year is known as Dump Season.
ScreenRant
Go watch the Oscar-nominated movies. Do it.
It’s a really good crop of films this year. I can’t hold back any longer: I’m tired of all these comic book films and franchise films. It’s truly a dumbing down of the craft and it’s really hurting the film world. I personally haven’t paid to see a comic book film in more than five years, and vow not to.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to go see the upcoming The Batman, it just means that it feels irresponsible to put my money toward the truly ugly trend that the film industry has been going through.
Maybe you’re mad at me for saying all this, maybe you’re on my side. Just had to say it.
