In one of those “crud, the weather is taking over the country for a little bit, and we’re shutting down!” weekends, the box office was meager at best, and not much would stand in its favor. That includes no mercy for the newest title to emerge from MGM Studios, Mercy, starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson. Yes, folks will immediately point to the massive snowstorm sweeping across the U.S. while other socio-political factors remain in the air (what happened to the peaceful times?).
The new sci-fi thriller only snagged an abysmal $11.2 million in its domestic debut, and its overseas debut was similarly poor ($11.6 million), for a $60 million budget. Poor reviews, yet a B- from CinemaScore put it in a fluky position, lest we forget the domestic issues rampaging across the country. We get it: folks have been demanding more original, non-franchise films to waltz back into theaters, but a budget has gotta budget, and who knows if this was once poised to go straight to PVOD. You can’t pull a Searching or Unfriended gross performance, unless your budget is kneecapped around $1 million.
Chris Pratt is a draw, but not in this particular case for a new thriller about “clearing one’s name.” He was added value in the likes of Passengers and The Magnificent Seven ten years ago. And most kids and teens would recognize his performances in The Garfield Movie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and, of course, the Guardians of the Galaxy/Avengers films. But he’s not quite a leading man who can bank on an adult-skewing feature, and, as we’ve discussed recently, what happened in the 2010s is a far cry from what’s happening in the 2020s. Just ask Leonardo DiCaprio, Dwayne Johnson, and even Tom Cruise. Would we have had a different conversation had this gone straight to streaming? Most definitely, but MGM needs to learn the rules for putting originals in theaters that folks will show up for.
In other news, Avatar: Fire and Ash finally fell to second place in its sixth weekend with $7 million; it has now passed $378 million domestically and is glacially moving towards $1.4 billion. Zootopia 2 has passed $400 million domestically and smashed past Avengers: Endgame‘s $623 million record total in China, reaching $1.744 billion. Lionsgate’s The Housemaid will pass $300 million worldwide by Tuesday, which is great news for Sydney Sweeney fans.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple took a nosedive, with a 71% drop in its second weekend, once again affirming that folks were only curious the first time back, not because it’s an IP they’re familiar with. A24’s Marty Supreme has passed $100 million worldwide, earning its Oscar nominations and allowing it to continue to leg out for the time being.
Newcomer Return to Silent Hill only earned $3.2 million in its debut; so much for the third attempt to make the supernatural horror game into a theatrical franchise. That’s a far cry from the $20 million debut of Silent Hill in 2006 and the $8 million of Silent Hill Revelation in 2012. We want originals!
Focus Features’ Hamnet passed $40 million worldwide, and the return of The Lord of the Rings trilogy this weekend earned a combined $5.2 million domestically.
Next weekend sees the release of The Wrecking Crew, Send Help, Iron Lung, Shelter, The Moment, and Moses the Black.
