The Hollywood Outsider – Film and Television Podcast | Reviews An award-winning film and television podcast for the fan in all of us
Identity Thief overcame Rex Reed’s objections and is now poised for $100 million plus after swiping another $14m for a $93m total. CBS is pissing themselves right now wondering how much longer Melissa McCarthy is going to suffer on Mike & Molly after this kind of bank. Meanwhile, Dwayne THE ROCK Johnson headlined a movie that wasn’t a sequel to someone else’s in Snitch and managed to open pretty decently at $13.1m. While not the action powerhouse he wanted the film to be, for a small crime thriller, it outperformed all recent flicks from Statham, Stallone and Big Arnie. With G.I. Joe 2 and Fast & Furious 6 all due in the next couple of months, we’re going to get pounded by The Rock this year.
Holding really strong at #3 was Escape From Planet Earth at $10.6m, down only -32.8% for a $34.8m total. While not Pixar numbers, for a low budget CGI kids flick it’s holding fairly well. #4 was last weekend’s #2 Safe Haven with $10.4m for a $47.9m total. The Nicholas Sparks sap fest was a low budget affair so it has already came out ahead.
Rounding out the top 5 was the weekend’s biggest disappointment. A Good Day To Die Hard dropped almost 60% from last weekend to $10.1m for a 25 year franchise low of $51.9m total. The film has been panned by critics and not loved by audiences so the decline has been much faster than anyone anticipated. With the 1988 original raking in $83m, it looks like this new iteration will fail to even match that films numbers, let alone the franchise high of the last one at $130m. Insert Bad Day To Die Hard pun here. Please make one more, a solid effort, and let McClane go out on top.
Lastly, Dark Skies, the new sci-fi thriller starring Keri Russell as a mom whose house is apparently in the wrong zip code, pulled in $8.1m. Doesn’t sound great in comparison, but when you factor in that Dark Skies only cost $4 million to make, the film is already a hit.
For info on this weekend’s multitude of new releases, including Jack the Giant Slayer, Last Exorcism 2 and 21 & Over, a review of A Good Day To Die Hard as well as Whatchutalking About Wallis and your usual HO depravity, listen to Ep 81 of The Hollywood Outsider!: