Moviefone Editorial

Tag: life itself

  • The 10 Biggest Box Office Flops Of 2018

    The 10 Biggest Box Office Flops Of 2018

    Audiences can be a fickle bunch, but it’s not always their fault.

    Sometimes the timing of a film’s release is wrong, or lands at a moment where people fail to see it. Sometimes the marketing of a movie misses its mark and fails to connect. Sometimes reviews reinforce moviegoer skepticism and they decide to stay away. But sometimes, a movie is just bad, and no silk hat is going to make that pig any prettier. But that doesn’t mean those movies aren’t good — or even great. In many cases, it merely means that their time to shine is yet to come – be it internationally, on home video, or on streaming services.

    As we assemble a list of the year’s biggest box office flops,  look at the titles below as a reminder to support the films and filmmakers you love so they get to make more of them and continue to explore the cinematic universes that become indelible parts of popular culture now and in the future.

    “A Wrinkle in Time”

    Domestic Gross: $100,478,608

    Worldwide Gross: $132,675,864

    “Action Point”

    Domestic/ Worldwide Gross: $5,059,608

    “Early Man”

    Domestic Gross: $8,267,544

    Worldwide Gross: $54,622,814

    “First Man”

    Domestic Gross: $44,790,010

    Worldwide Gross: $100,490,010

    “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”

    Domestic Gross: $14,777,868

    Worldwide Gross: $33,891,747

    “The Happytime Murders”

    Domestic Gross: $20,706,452

    Worldwide Gross: $27,506,452

    “Life Itself”

    Domestic Gross: $4,102,648

    Worldwide Gross: $5,634,912

    Disney

    “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”

    Domestic Gross: $52,909,258

    Worldwide Gross: $140,357,413

    “Robin Hood”

    Domestic Gross: $28,052,736

    Worldwide Gross: $65,789,193

    “Solo: A Star Wars Story”

    Domestic Gross: $213,767,512

    Worldwide Gross: $392,924,807

  • Box Office: ‘House With a Clock in Its Walls’ Gives Eli Roth His Best Opening

    Box Office: ‘House With a Clock in Its Walls’ Gives Eli Roth His Best Opening

    The House With a Clock in Its Walls
    Universal Pictures

    “The House With a Clock in Its Walls“ really did know what makes moviegoers tick. It picked up $26.85 million in its opening weekend, which is more than double what the next two films on the box office chart made.

    The first weekend of Fall 2018 wasn’t the most exciting time at the domestic box office, but “House” director Eli Roth should be happy. This is his first PG-rated movie, so it’s not too shocking that it had a better opening than his usual R-rated horror/thrillers.

    According to Deadline, “House” was easily Eli Roth’s best opening, topping the $19.55 million of “Hostel“ in 2006. “House” was also his best-reviewed feature with a 68 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Jack Black and Cate Blanchett film had a lower RT audience rating, though, and “only” got a B+ CinemaScore from polled moviegoers.

    Life Itself
    Amazon Studios

    “Life Itself,” which has been kicked to death by critics, also got a B+ CinemaScore. Michael Moore‘s “Fahrenheit 11/9“ earned an A CinemaScore, but a much lower RT audience score. Michael Moore is the kind of documentarian who inspires HEATED feelings, but this latest film has stayed under the radar in comparison to his past films, like “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

    Of the four fairly major new releases this week, only two made the top 10 — “House” at No. 1, and “Fahrenheit 11/9” at No. 8 with $3,101,000. “Life Itself” settled for No. 11 with $2,106,200, and “Assassination Nation“ was No. 15 with $1,028,600.

    Granted, both “Fahrenheit” and “Assassination” opened on fewer than 2,000 screens.Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael MooreBriarcliff Entertainment

    “Life Itself” had 2,609 theaters, and “House” got itself 3,592 theaters. It’s easier to get people to watch a movie if they can actually find a seat near them. But “Life Itself” and “Assassination Nation” had per-screen averages of $807 and $733, respectively. That’s pretty sad, especially when compared to some other new releases (see intel below chart).

    “The Predator,” now in Week 2, is still playing in more than 4,000 theaters, but it took fourth place, behind “A Simple Favor“ — showing those legs studio experts suspected it would have — and “The Nun.”

    (“The Nun” is really killing it overseas; it just passed $100M over here but added almost $200M from the foreign box office. Fear of nuns is universal!)

    The Nun
    Warner Bros.

    Here are the weekend estimates for September 21-23:

    1. “The House With a Clock in Its Walls” – $26,850,000
    2. “A Simple Favor” – $10,400,000
    3. “The Nun” – $10,250,000
    4. “The Predator” – $8,700,00
    5. “Crazy Rich Asians” – $6,515,000
    6. “White Boy Rick” – $5,000,000
    7. “Peppermint” – $3,720,000
    8. “Fahrenheit 11/9” – $3,101,000
    9. “The Meg” – $2,350,000
    10. “Searching” – $2,175,000

    You have to go way down to No. 25 and No. 26 for two other new limited release films — “Colette“ and “The Sisters Brothers,” respectively. They both premiered on only four theaters, with more to come, so this is just a taste of their very high per-screen average — like $39,000 high, vs. $7,400 for “House” at No. 1., and $807 for “Life Itself.” “Colette” and “Sisters Brothers” may rank low on the chart, but this is actually good for them.

    What’s next?

    Are you ready to head to “Night School“? Hang out with “Smallfoot“? They’re coming next week, and then early October brings “Venom“ and “A Star Is Born.“

    [Via: Deadline, Box Office Mojo]

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  • ‘Life Itself’ Director Dan Fogelman Blasts ‘White Male Critics’ for Negative Reviews

    ‘Life Itself’ Director Dan Fogelman Blasts ‘White Male Critics’ for Negative Reviews

    Amazon Studios

    “Life Itself,” the new big screen drama from “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman, has been billing itself as an emotional, uplifting movie about human connection. Unfortunately for Fogelman, it’s getting absolutely pummeled by critics — so much so that the director has called out one group in particular as being especially unfair to the flick.

    The film opened to awful reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, and has been accruing pans left and right ever since. It currently holds a 12 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 21 on Metacritic.

    But to Fogelman, that reaction seems “so out of left field” to the “Life Itself” creative team, as he explained in an interview with TooFab.

    “There’s a disconnect between something that is happening between our primarily white male critics who don’t like anything that has any emotion,” Fogelman told the site.

    He continued:

    “Something’s happened with these 10 people who kind of speak in this ‘group speak’ and say [my work is] ’emotionally manipulative’ every time they [see] anything where [my] characters go through anything,” Fogelman added. “And it’s concerning because it is important, it tells people what to go see. I don’t feel that often now our pop and film critics are speaking for a sophisticated audience anymore.”

    Fogelman may disagree, and have a particular ax to grind with white males (a group of which he is a member, oddly enough), but almost every critic who’s seen to film so far — regardless of race or gender — has panned it. It’s being called “manipulative and contrived” (Variety’s Jessica Kiang); “overwhelmed by schmaltz” (RogerEbert.com’s Monica Castillo); “smugly satisfied with its own cleverness” (Entertainment Weekly’s Dana Schwartz) and “bad enough to make you question life itself” (the hilarious headline from Slate’s review by Inkoo Kang).

    To be fair to Fogelman, though, probably one of the harshest reviews came from Rolling Stone’s resident white male critic, Peter Travers, who gave the film zero stars and declared it the worst movie of 2018. The “cinematic black hole,” according to Travers, is “a blithering botch job” that devolves into “a hellish blaze of gross incompetence, crass tear-jerking, unrelenting tragedy porn, unearned self-congratulation and leaden dialogue that hits you like a blunt force trauma.” (And that’s just the from the first paragraph of the scathing review.)

    Suffice it to say, fans will have to see for themselves whether or not they agree with the critics. At least Fogelman will have the success of “This Is Us” to fall back on if “Life Itself” falls short.

    [via: TooFab]

  • ‘Life Itself’ Trailer Might Make You Cry Harder Than ‘This Is Us’

    Life Itself
    Amazon Studios

    Find a private corner to watch the trailer for “Life Itself” because it may make you ugly cry.

    The movie was written and directed by Dan Fogelman, the creator of NBC’s feel-good-also-sad family drama “This Is Us.” And as viewers of that show know, Fogelman knows how to pull on heartstrings and get the tears flowing.

    Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wild star as a young New York couple who fall in love as college students, become newlyweds and then later parents. The multigenerational saga follows “the unexpected twists of their journey and how they create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.”

    The movie has a fantastic cast including Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, and Laia Costa. And if the trailer’s opening line of dialogue delivered by Isaac is indicative of what to expect — bring a lot of tissues.

    “Life Itself” opens in theaters September 21.