Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. 2018 rolls into the new blockbuster battleground month of March with two new films to challenge Black Panther.
Two new films this week challenge King T’Challa and the box office juggernaut that is Black Panther. The first is a remake of the Charles Bronson revenge movie Death Wish starring Bruce Willis and directed by Eli Roth. I have a hard and fast rule to avoid anything Eli Roth is remotely connected to, so I will be giving this one a wide berth.
While once the biggest and most reliable box office draw amongst actresses, Jennifer Lawrence is in a bit of a career slump the last few years. After the failure of Passengers and the controversy of mother!, she could really use a hit. Unfortunately, the reviews on Red Sparrow (which-again-seems like a direct rip-off of the Black Widow film Marvel should have made years ago), are tepid at best, and it’s doubtful that this is going to be the film that puts JLaw back at the top.
Death Wish (Bruce Willis, Vincent D’Onofrio, R, 1hr 48min)
Red Sparrow (Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, R, 2hr 20min)
How Did We Do Last Week? KT picked Black Panther to repeat, but it did a whole lot more than just win the box office for the second weekend in a row. It had the second best second weekend in film history making $111.8 million behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ second weekend. Game Night finished a distant second with $17.1 million.
Black Panther seems destined to be Disney’s first billion dollar film of the year. It honestly will be interesting to see how Avengers: Infinity War does against it at this point because it got to $400 million domestic in 10 days, which is only behind (you guessed it) Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It has made, thus far, $421.9 million domestically and $748.2 million globally. It’s already the 20th highest grossing film domestically, and the 3rd highest grossing film in the MCU’s history (behind only the two Avengers films….for now). Yes. It outgrossed Captain America: Civil War in two weeks. Internationally, it’s currently #86 and rising. No February film in history has come close to this kind of box office drawing power.
(2018 Prediction Record: 8-0; Lifetime prediction record 93-10).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
Black Panther three-peats with ease. The film only dropped 47% last week, and even with new contenders, it has become a cultural event at this point and it has at least another week or two to sit atop the box office throne.
Not an Eli Roth fan huh? I can understand that. I like him in spite of himself and his wildly inconsistent body of work and while I don’t think Death Wish is going to be the big rebound he’s needed, I’m hoping it is entertaining.
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I never hope for another person’s failure, not even the makers of Red. Sparrow, not even JLaw after making mother! But should Red Sparrow fail, I hope it clears the way for a Black Widow film, and does not do something perverse, like scaring Disney away from the subject matter. I am bewildered that Captain Marvel is going to be thier first step into female centric MCU territory. We all love Brie, but the old guard is getting old, and Scarlett is a part of it.
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Yep,BP for the win. The other two would have to be a whole lot better quality to make any kind of den
… I think Jennifer needs to spend the next decade getting herself deep into a particular genre and kick some serious butt in it or she’s going to … evaporate might be the word I’m looking for.
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She really had a screen presence in Hunger Games. Actual gravitas. Now it’s turning into a sport to make fun of her and dismiss her as an airhead. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but American Hustle tells me she’s more talented than people give her credit for. I think she thought mother! was going to give her some cred.
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… yes … oopsie … she keeps on trying though …
Which brings me to one of my favourite sayings … have you ever seen the movie ‘Desert Hearts’? First ever lesbian movie where the lesbians didn’t die, go insane, go back to men, or generally have an unhappily ever after ending. So anyway there’s a casino scene and one minor character, actually played by the director, is putting coins in a row of slot machines and says to one of the main characters, ‘If you don’t play, you don’t win.” … I use this in life, a lot. 😀
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Is that what Desert Hearts is? I’ve heard of it. Now I’ll have to see it. It’s so rare for people to have the freedom be exactly who they are, with no strings attached. It’s even rarer for that to happen with characters in Hollywood movies. I’ll never understand people who go out into the world, to movies, ect, wanting nothing more than to have their own worldview and experience parroted back at them. Why not just sit in a little room and look in the mirror, and talk to yourself?
JLaw already has a kind of interesting career. She has nothing to apologize for or regret. Or, at least, very little (I can’t let mother! go, but it was just one thing). I love that she followed up the first Hunger Games with Silver Linings Playbook, one of my favorite films of hers. I think she’ll do okay, because unlike some people I think she is actually quite talented. She just needs to go back to choosing better scripts.
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