“The Woman King” duped Americans this weekend into coughing up close to $19 million of their hard-earned dollars on a mediocre product. Of course, I'm half-joking. Just having a little fun with this one as it made $5 million more than I expected it to. I was off. The positive reviews probably pushed it forward.
Congrats to filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythehood, who has made far worthier films in her career (“Love & Basketball”, “Beyond the Lights”). Viola Davis as well, who called her semi-decent performance in the film the “magnum opus” of her career. I guess she forget about her incredible work in “Fences,” “Widows” and ‘Ma Rainey.’
Don't get me wrong, these aren't blockbuster numbers, but it's neither a flop. It has a $50 million budget and what it now needs is legs. It could have them. The question remains whether “The Woman King” can build any kind of momentum in the coming weeks to sustain this.
I watched “The Woman King” during its premiere weekend in Toronto and came out of a screening thinking the reviews were going to be mediocre. It was obvious, bloated, filled with cliches and blandly conventional. I was wrong. Kool-aid had been drunk.
It can't just be me who believes in the mediocrity of “The Woman King,” It is quite literally, beat-for-beat, the same Hollywood blueprint that other period epics have used in the past, there's nothing fresh or invigorating about it.
I'd be curious to know what our readers thought of the movie …
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.