Weekend Forecast for June 10-12, 2016
By Reagen Sulewski
June 10, 2016
Speaking of films that Just Aren't For You, we have Warcraft, the film loosely based on the mythology of Blizzard's RTS and MMPORG money-factory game universe. Already off to a blistering start in China, it's being met with bewilderment and horror in North America. A mix of high and low fantasy, it takes place in Blizzard's world of Azeroth, populated here mostly by humans and orc – the latter of whom director Duncan Jones has rather unwisely tried to make sexy, creating a very unsettling look on-screen.
Anyway, after what I'm presuming is an initial half hour of wood chopping and stone mining, humans and orcs come to some sort of peace pact to fight a greater evil of demons and something something warmed over Tolkien. It's clear that an inordinate amount of effort has gone into making this the best Warcraft movie that could appear on screen – but the sad flip side to that coin is that a Warcraft movie just can't be that good. This is a thoroughly repellent looking film that brings to mind Gods of Egypt from earlier this year – a film that its makers took very very seriously for no good reason. Warcraft falls into this same category and has been garnering comparisons to Battlefield Earth, though that feels unfair, as this film at least looks competently made. With a rather unfathomable $160 million budget, this needs massive turnout to justify its existence – and it won't get it, opening to about $17 million this weekend.
Returning films are led by the equally horrific Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which opened to $35 million and shocked looks all around. This is a rather hefty hit from the 2014 film's $65 million debut and hopefully cuts short any plans for a third film (hear that, Michael Bay? Stop producing these and go back to making your terrible Transformers films... oh, man, there's just no winning here, huh?). The legs here should be abysmal, considering the last film dropped by over half in its second weekend, and people were still kind of curious then. Look for $13 million this weekend.
X-Men Apocalypse showed the way to this kind of result last weekend, falling by two-thirds to $23 million after its already unimpressive start. It's all but assured to finish well below the $200 million mark domestically, and shows that this franchise is starting to move backwards again – time for another reboot? Great stewardship, Fox. It should add about $11 million this frame.
The weepy romance Me Before You was a small, positive surprise with $18 million, putting it in Paper Towns, but not The Fault in Our Stars territory as far as this genre goes. Some positive word-of-mouth should push this into a decent run in theaters, but about $11 million is probably a best-case scenario this weekend.
Our last significant returning films are The Angry Birds Movie, which should land with about $7 million this weekend, and Alice Through The Looking Glass, hanging on with about $5 million.
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Forecast: Weekend of June 10-12, 2016
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
The Conjuring 2
|
3,343
|
New
|
45.1
|
|
2
|
Now You See Me 2
|
3,232
|
New
|
22.6
|
|
3
|
Warcraft
|
3,400
|
New
|
17.4
|
|
4
|
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
|
4,071
|
No Change
|
13.3
|
|
5
|
X-Men: Apocalypse
|
3,585
|
-568
|
11.6
|
|
6
|
Me Before You
|
2,762
|
+58
|
10.9
|
|
7
|
The Angry Birds Movie
|
3,083
|
-401
|
7.0
|
|
8
|
Alice Through the Looking Glass
|
2,898
|
-865
|
5.2
|
|
9
|
Captain America: Civil War
|
2,101
|
-983
|
4.6
|
|
10
|
The Jungle Book
|
1,496
|
-494
|
3.1
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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