A poor box-office weekend for the industry. The lack of actor promotion is starting to have an effect on performance, especially when it comes to Gareth Edwards’ “The Creator.” Without the strike, it could have, maybe, added an extra few million to its tally.
Disney spent at least $100 million, including marketing, in making this decently realized sci-fi original movie. Sadly, its weekend receipts were lacklustre — just $14 million. Who ended up watching it this weekend? I was never really bored by “the Creator”, it’s well-made, but not any sort of game changer.
Regardless, what a shame. Lack of promotion played a big part in its mediocre outcome, you could have had stars like John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney doing the promotional rounds. Its poor box-office performance might now further convince studios that original sci-fi can’t make money.
Sadly, amongst the masses, The Creator” is barely known to even exist. Ask your friend or uncle and they’ll say they’ve never heard of it. However, especially if you have kids, the mainstream has definitely heard of “PAW Patrol,” which won the weekend with $23 million. Families needed a movie, and this was it.
Meanwhile, good reviews pushed “Saw X” to a very respectable $18 million. Its budget was a skimp $13 million. It’s not that expensive making these ‘Saw’ movies. This is the tenth one and you bet it won’t be the final instalment.
The difference this time around for ‘Saw’ was that the Rotten Tomatoes crowd actually liked it — it currently stands at 85% fresh. I’m dumbfounded by this score. The 60 Metascore does give a better indicator of its quality, which is why it’s always better to prioritize Metacritic over RT when making your moviegoing choices.
Some bad news for Sony’s “Dumb Money.” Decent reviews couldn’t help the GameSpot/Reddit saga, despite a wider expansion into theaters — it has only grossed $7 million in three weeks of release. At least it’s a better predicament than “Expendables 4,” which has so far earned just $13.2 million, on a $100 million budget.