New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Kim Hollis: The 5th Wave, the latest YA dystopian adaptation, earned $10.3 million. What are your thoughts on this performance?

Jason Barney: At least as far as the three new openers are concerned, this is by far the worst of them. I don't have a problem with studios trying to adapt the next big thing, as book to movie stories have done quite well. How many franchises have made the successful leap over the last couple of years?

However, the budget numbers against the opening are just awful. Sony put $38 million into this project and with it opening in sixth place, it is in very poor shape. $10 million with bad word-of-mouth basically shows this film has little support and no chance of holding well.

Ben Gruchow: Not great, but it could be worse. This is Chloë Grace Moretz's lowest opening as a headliner since Let Me In in 2010. Foreign grosses are going to rescue the movie, though; it has already earned $28 million overseas to the $10.3 here, and with a production budget that's much more in line with lower-expectation YA first-book adaptations (it's more Maze Runner/The Host/Twilight, as opposed to Hunger Games/Divergent/Percy Jackson), it'll break even. I don't really see a "The 5th Wave: The Infinite Sea" happening, though. It's too bad; the Rick Yancey book this was based on was very positively reviewed, and based on the finished product in theaters I'm going to guess a lot of the more intriguing material ended up on the cutting room floor or just lost in translation.

Ryan Kyle: I agree with Jay that this is the biggest disappointment of the week. While it hit projected expectations at $10.3 million, judging by the trailer's saturation and how early they started teasing this film, they were expecting much more when this was given the go-ahead. Made economically for $38 million, it won't be a big loss and with overseas bailing this title out, but I wouldn't expect a sequel. I think a good comparison is 2013's The Host, which opened similarly and wrapped up with $26.6 million. I'm more curious to see where Moretz goes after this.

Kim Hollis: Meh. I think it's time for studios to stop trying to find the next big dystopian YA adaptation. Surely there's some other trend in literature that they can milk to death.

David Mumpower: The scary thought here is that everybody tried. Unlike the two movies above, this one had maximum studio support. So, its humbling outcome in the face of ostensibly inferior competition is just...well, people should get fired over this one. I think movie producers need to do a better job of identifying how well a story transfers to the big screen. That's where the culling transpires. This is the savviest generation of teens ever, and a lot of these products openly insult them.

Continued:       1       2       3