The Dark Tower Tops Lowest Weekend of Summer 2017 Yet
by Brad Brevet
August 6, 2017


Sony's The Dark Tower topped the softest weekend at the domestic box office since early April, opening with less than $20 million. Among other new releases, Aviron's Kidnap had a modest showing, squeaking above $10 million, while Annapurna's Detroit was unable to take off in its nationwide expansion.

Overall, with the top twelve films grossing $111.5 million makes this the lowest grossing weekend of the summer season and sixth lowest of the year as the 2017 summer movie season is currently down 10% compared to 2016.







At #1, Sony's release of The Dark Tower, a long-awaited adaptation of the Stephen King sci-fi/fantasy series, delivered an estimated $19.5 million from 3,451 locations. It's a disappointing debut for the $60 million production, which is expected to kick-off a multi-platform franchise with co-financier MRC currently developing a television series.

That being said, this is the second largest opening weekend ever for a King adaptation, behind the $20.6 million debut for 2007's 1408, which went on to gross over $70 million domestically, but don't look for Dark Tower to reach those heights, which is more likely to settle closer to $50-55 million once all is said and done.



Ahead of release, The Dark Tower wasn't helped by critics. The film received a weak score of 35 on the review aggregation site Metacritic and opening day audiences weren't particularly impressed either, giving the film a "B" CinemaScore.

Internationally, The Dark Tower opened in 19 markets, bringing in an estimated $8 million.







Dunkirk finished in second with an estimated $17.6 million, dropping only 34% in its third weekend in release for a domestic cume just shy of $135 million.

Internationally, Dunkirk delivered an estimated $25 million from 63 markets bringing its overseas cume to $180.6 million for a global tally that now stands at $314.2 million.







Sony's animated feature The Emoji Movie finished in third with an estimated $12.35 million, dropping around 50% in its second weekend for a domestic cume just shy of $50 million in ten days.

Internationally, after opening in just Kenya and Israel last weekend, The Emoji Movie reached 21 markets this weekend and brought in an estimated $12 million for an overseas cume of $12.7 million.







Landing in fourth after yet another strong performance is Universal's R-rated comedy Girls Trip, finishing with an estimated $11.4 million, dropping just 42% in its third weekend with a domestic cume that now totals over $85 million.

After seventeen days in release Girls Trip is pacing a fraction ahead of where Bridesmaids was at the same point in the release cycle.







And rounding out the top five is Aviron's Kidnap. The Halle Berry-starrer delivered on the top end of our expectations heading into the weekend, delivering an estimated $10.2 million from 2,378 locations.

The film received a "B+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences.







Finishing outside the top ten, Annapurna's Detroit had a tough weekend. Kathryn Bigelow's latest struggled in its nationwide expansion, pulling in an estimated $7.7 million from 3,007 theaters for a $2,411 per theater average.

Expectations heading into the weekend were a performance in the low teens, but instead this performance is much closer to that of Free State of Jones, another adult drama that debut in the summer last year and managed to only bring in $7.6 million in its opening before finishing with $20.8 million for its domestic run.

Audiences did agree with critics (78 on Metacritic), scoring the film with a strong "A-" CinemaScore, but with an opening like this it's unlikely word of mouth will be able to keep it around for too long.







In limited release, The Weinstein Co. released Wind River into four theaters and brought in an estimated $164,167 for a sturdy, $41,042 per theater average.

The film will expand into 40 locations among the top 20 markets with a further expansion planned for the following weekend.







Other limited releases include Fox Searchlight's Step, which brought in an estimated $145,000 from 29 theaters ($5,000 PTA); Purdie's We Love You, Sally Carmichael! opened with an estimated $34,397 in seven locations ($4,914 PTA); Independent's release of Kogonada's Columbus brought in an estimated $28,000 from two locations; Brave New Jersey debuted with an estimated $14,105 from 14 locations (%552 PTA); and It's Not Dark Yet opened with an estimated $1,000 from two theaters.







Elsewhere, Spider-Man: Homecoming finished the weekend with a domestic cume just shy of $295 million while Wonder Woman needs less than $500k to become the 27th film all-time to top $400 million at the domestic box office.

Speaking of $400 million, The H Collective's release of Wolf Warrior 2 enjoyed an impressive weekend both domestically and especially abroad. Despite losing 21 screens in North America, the film saw a 110% increase in its weekend gross, bringing in an estimated $460k for a domestic total just over $1 million.

However, where the even bigger story lies is in the film's performance in China where it topped $400 million on Saturday, out-performing the $392 million performance of The Fate of the Furious, to become the second largest film in China ever behind 2016's The Mermaid, which holds the record with over $525 million and it looks as if that record is going down.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4312&p=.htm









August 4-6, 2017 Weekend Studio Estimates:


1. The Dark Tower $19,500,000
2. Dunkirk $17,600,000 / $133,555,738
3. The Emoji Movie $12,350,000 / $49,451,704
4. Girls Trip $11,418,700 / $85,443,720
5. Kidnap $10,210,000
6. Spider-Man: Homecoming $8,800,000 / $294,907,776
7. Atomic Blonde $8,244,930 / $34,125,305
8. Detroit $7,251,000 / $7,766,482
9. War for the Planet of the Apes $6,000,000 / $130,280,255
10. Despicable Me 3 $5,288,640 / $240,779,550

http://www.avclub.com/article/dark-tower-batman-robin-crappy-blockbusters-share--259059#comments

By Alex McLevy @alexm247
Aug 7, 2017 11:31 AM

This past weekend greeted eager popcorn-movie fans with a dispiriting barrage of negative reviews for The Dark Tower (http://www.earwolf.com/episode/winters-tale/), the would-be franchise starter of the messy but popular Stephen King book series of the same name. Everything from the lackluster direction by Nikolaj Arcel to poor choices in cutting and pasting different sections of the early books in the story was called out by critics and moviegoers alike, resulting in yet another generic and uninspired wannabe-blockbuster that will doubtless be looked back upon with the same “not even a nice try” attitude that greeted similar franchise also-rans from 2017 like Rings and Transformers: The Last Knight. A common thread between these three films? They were all either written or had stories by Akiva Goldsman (http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/who-keeps-hiring-akiva-goldsman-to-ruin-movies.php).

Actually, it’s not fair to say Goldsman is responsible for writing The Dark Tower. Even whittling down the presumable army of screenwriters who had a hand behind the scenes to the official names, you’re left with five credited writers, including longtime TV writer Jeff Pinkner (with whom Goldsman teamed up for many of his co-writing credits on the TV series Fringe, a show superior in nearly every way to his big-screen work) and Arcel himself. Similarly, Rings has five writing credits, Transformers seven, and multiple other projects awarding Goldsman a writing byline (The 5th Wave, Insurgent, Angels & Demons, to name a few) also spread the credit—or more accurately, blame—among multiple scribes. Still, look at those titles: The one quality they share, besides Goldsman’s name in the credits, is not being very good. Downright bad, would be more accurate. And at a certain point—much like how if someone complains every day that everyone they meet seems to be an *******, thereby suggesting they themselves are the real *******—you have to wonder if Goldsman might be the problem.

Better still, just look to his solo credits, or at least the films that stem largely from his pen. He began in the ’90s with a couple of John Grisham adaptations (The Client and A Time To Kill, the former of which was cowritten by Robert Getchell), which are both serviceable films and among the more respectable projects he’s ever helped write, though no one should consider them great screenplays. But then look at the rest of his output: He penned the execrable big-screen version of Lost In Space single-handedly. The dour and sodden adaptation of The Da Vinci Code? All him. Best of all, the famously franchise-sinking Batman & Robin? Goldsman is the man to thank for all those “freeze” puns and grown adults acting like 7-year-olds.

What makes Goldsman’s work so poor is just how little soul there seems to be in it. The movies in which he’s had a hand all share a lack of concern for character development outside of screenwriting 101, Save The Cat!-style generalities. He takes whatever genre or format he’s working in and applies the most reductive, easily digestible conflicts and themes, a process film executives may see as making a movie “broadly accessible” but which tends in practice to render them more “toothless and inhuman.” Instead, he ladles on plot contrivances and mythos like they were the main course, rather than seasonings meant to spice up a film’s content. He’s like your uncle who lost his taste buds from smoking, and now ladles too much salt onto everything he eats, rendering each dish weirdly interchangeable and unappetizing by negating any subtleties or distinctions.

But his claim to fame lies with his Oscar glory. In 2002, A Beautiful Mind crushed at the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director for Ron Howard, Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly, and netting Goldsman the Best Adapted Screenplay award. Based on the overwhelmingly poor quality of nearly every project he’s had a hand in writing since, Goldsman has been dining out on that Oscar for the past 15 years. His name was established as someone who can deliver not just good work, but Academy Award-winning work, and those credentials have seemingly placed blinders over the eyes of everyone who has brought him on board since. He’s been involved with loads of big Hollywood projects, from franchises big and small to further adaptations of popular pre-existing narratives, and not a one has ended up anywhere near even the “good enough” bar set by Beautiful Mind. (Goldsman’s one exception: He re-teamed with Howard for 2004’s Cinderella Man, a movie now generally agreed to be superior to A Beautiful Mind—but also one where Goldsman got help from co-writer Cliff Hollingsworth, who also earned the “story by” credit.)

Indeed, since his Oscar win, Goldsman has done basically nothing but team up with others, whether as part of a writers room, punching up others’ scripts, or simply collaborating on screenplays for big-budget Hollywood fare. Whether this hints at an inability to pull off a screenplay on his own or a preference for the script doctor lifetstyle remains unknown, much like the possibility of actual personalities for his onscreen creations. There’s only been one project on which Akiva Goldsman has enjoyed sole writing credit since his Oscar win, and it’s the kind of movie that makes other movies want to shove it in a locker and steal its lunch money.

Winter’s Tale stars Colin Farrell as a seemingly immortal thief raised by a demon (Russell Crowe) who falls in love but the woman dies because they have sex and then Farrell’s winged horse stays with him as he wanders New York for a hundred years, and also, Lucifer is played by Will Smith. That description might sound unfairly dismissive, but if you’ve seen the film, you know it barely begins to do justice to the weird-bad quality of the movie. It’s the kind of bonkers flop that almost seems expressly designed to be covered on the How Did This Get Made? podcast. Goldsman not only wrote it, he directed it as well (it’s his film debut), and it’s almost endearing as a foolhardy passion-project—an inexplicable curio, rather than a straight-up piece of crap

Goldsman has never written a great film, and more often than not, his work is lazy, uninspired, or just plain bad. Yet time and again, his name turns up on projects, as he cashes his paycheck and puts in the hours to complete yet another derivative offering of slapdash Hollywood product. There’s a name for this kind of writer: a hack—someone who can churn out material that fits a requisite mold with little regard for artistic merit or considerations of quality. There are plenty of hacks capable of doing good work, but Goldsman’s name on a project is practically a guarantee of bloodless moviemaking. His films share a joyless, unimaginative vibe that suggests a film made by someone who doesn’t get much of a charge from making films. He’s the Brett Ratner of screenwriters.

None of which is to imply there’s not a place for Goldsman in the entertainment business. After all, take a look at his IMDB credits in which he’s listed not as a writer, but a producer. It’s an uneven list to be sure (remember Jonah Hex?) but it suggests someone who excels at the behind-the-scenes work of getting films and TV shows made. Producers need not feel bad when movies they help shepherd aren’t good; if it was on time and under budget, they earned their keep. Like Ratner, Goldsman may want to consider a future in which his contributions are limited to the business side of things. But studios may want to consider taking The Dark Tower as the warning bell they didn’t heed on any of Goldsman’s numerous prior big-budget movies: The guy isn’t helping make your film better. Stop giving him the chance to fail upward yet again.