Captain America: Brave New World hit some turbulence this weekend. But in the end, it still had enough altitude to glide to a second-straight win.
Brave New World earned an estimated $28.2 million in North America to post its newest box-office victory. A win? Sure. But underneath Captain America’s gold-medal performance, you see plenty of zinc. The film lost 68% of its weekend-over-weekend audience—a precipitous drop indeed, especially given the lack of competition. Perhaps it’s because the film is, as our own Bob Hoose said on YouTube, just not that great.
Still, Brave New World has earned $141.2 million domestically and $289.4 million worldwide. Those numbers suggest that the superhero genre still has some muscle in it yet.
A newcomer called The Monkey drummed up a little business of its own. The horror comedy thumped its way to $14.2 million in its first week of action—hardly a killing, but enough to make the toy simian smile a bit.
Paddington in Peru finished third with $6.5 million. The raincoat-wearing bear has earned a mere trickle: $25.3 million in North America. But overseas, the cash is pouring in: It’s garnered $125 million in international markets, pushing Paddington in Peru to $150.3 million worldwide gross. That’ll buy a lot of marmalade.
Dog Man continues to sniff around the top five, earning $5.9 million for fourth place. And the Chinese film Ne Zha 2 landed in the No. 5 slot for the second straight weekend. Looking down the list a bit, The Unbreakable Boy earned $2.5 million to land in a virtual tie for eighth place with Mufasa: The Lion King. Here’s to hoping this nice little movie finds a bigger audience. Meanwhile, Cleaner found its own coffers practically spotless. It earned a mere $426,000 to finish 19th.
2 Responses
So far I’ve seen Paddington and The Monkey and greatly loved both. Paddington is probably the best of the series so far and The Monkey is not only one of Stephen King’s best ever adaptations but it’s the most thoughtful film about death and dying I’ve seen since Benjamin Button in 2008. Sure it’s gory and creepy and foul mouthed at times, but it’s mostly funny sad and tragic, and oddly Shakespearean in nature, think of one of his bloody tragedies like Titus Andronicus. Basically there’s a lot more to The Monkey than meets the eye. Simply sublime.
I think “Captain America’s” utter lack of ambition cost it, especially after what the same series was able to pull off both with Civil War (enormous cast, all of whom felt relevant) and Winter Soldier (the arrangement and filming of its action scenes felt like an intense war thriller instead of a regular superhero movie). Plus, from what I saw on forums, some people were expecting the film to make more direct commentary on our current situation—though they did welcome the comments about how marginalized groups don’t always get second chances if they make mistakes.
Off topic but I was able to see a theatrical screening of “Flow” over the weekend. Beautiful film but I’m tired of movies – especially children’s movies, like this and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” – doing a faux-depressing ending and then pulling a “happy surprise” during the post-credits epilogue.