Who’s more powerful: Wonder Woman or Tom Cruise?
Let’s bitch it out…
After last weekend’s historic debut, the big question is whether Wonder Woman will continue to soar in her second weekend at the box office. Competition arrives in the form of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, the fourth iteration of the famous Universal property (and the start of their proposed – and ill named – “Dark Universe” of creature features). Also on the docket, in a much more limited capacity, is a feel-good film about a girl and her dog and indie horror It Comes At Night with genre fave Joel Edgerton.
June 9, 2017
The Mummy (Wide)
- Cast: Tom Cruise (Magnolia), Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Russell Crowe (Proof of Life)
- Official Synopsis: Thought safely entombed in a tomb deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess (Boutella) whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension.
- Good for fans of: Plagues, prophecies, not the 1999 Brendan Fraser film
- Is it worth your time? Apparently not. Reviews have torpedoed the film for being a joyless CGI marathon with little purpose for existing. Throw in some unexciting trailers that make this look like nothing more than a traditional Cruise film with a supernatural vibe and Crowe’s hammy performance and it doesn’t quite add up. That this is the first in a planned series of Universal monster films almost feels like a threat; one that audiences are clearly voting against with their wallets.
- Gross: $30 million / Total: $80 million
Megan Leavey (Wide)
- Cast: Kate Mara (127 Hours), Tom Felton (The Flash)
- Official Synopsis: The true story of Marine Corporal Megan Leavey (Mara), who forms a powerful bond with an aggressive combat dog, Rex. While deployed in Iraq, the two complete more than 100 missions and save countless lives, until an IED explosion puts their faithfulness to the test.
- Good for fans of: Dogs, war films, the Mara sisters
- Is it worth your time? Admittedly we were prepared to write this one off as feel-good, rah-rah America tripe, but reviews suggest that it is poignant, affecting and reasonably well executed. Mara is a reliably good actress who is more often overshadowed by her sister, and apparently this is one of her best performances to date.
- Gross: $2 million / Total: $5 million
It Comes At Night (Limited)
- Cast: Joel Edgerton (The Box), Carmen Ejogo (Away We Go)
- Official Synopsis: Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, a man (Edgerton) has established a tenuous domestic order with his wife (Ejogo) and son, but this will soon be put to test when a desperate young family arrives seeking refuge.
- Good for fans of: Psychological horror, confinement, plagues
- Is it worth your time? By all accounts, yes. This is a film that relies on atmosphere and performance and while early reviews complain that most of the horror arrives in the form of nightmares, it is still a well-made film and an oasis for horror fans who have nothing else to latch onto. Plus A24 is killing it in terms of film quality (Moonlight, The Lobster, The Witch, Room, Amy, Ex Machina, Spring Breakers).
- Gross: $9.5 million / Total: $25 million
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That’s it for this week. Come back next week for a preview of the third Cars film (ugh) and Scar Jo’s bachelorette party gone wrong, Rough Night.