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Logan Lucky.jpg

Box Office Report: Deadpool & Nick Fury Beat Bond & Kylo Ren

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 21, 2017 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | August 21, 2017 |


The Summer is coming to an end and this is the point in the movie calendar where studios either dump their mediocre material or hope that the decrease in competition from franchises will offer a better playing field for smaller stuff. This week, we saw that in action as The Hitman’s Bodyguard took on Logan Lucky and stormed ahead to the top spot.

The action-comedy, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, had middling reviews but Lionsgate cites is strong word of mouth as a reason for it opening at number one with $21.6m on its first weekend. That’s respectable for a film of a $29m budget, so it seems that post-Deadpool, we’re all ready to welcome Ryan Reynolds back into our hearts. Then again, Pajiba HQ has always been big on Canada’s equal best Ryan. Don’t take our word for it: It’s even on TV Tropes.

Sadly, the numbers are less strong for Logan Lucky, the theatrical comeback of Oscar winning director Stephen Soderbergh. The NASCAR heist film got great reviews and has a brilliant cast - Daniel Craig! Channing Tatum! Riley Keough! Adam Driver! - but only took in a disappointing $8.1m from over 3000 cinemas, which puts it at number 3, behind last week’s big release, Annabelle: Creation. Prepare for that film to be like The Nice Guys, where everyone discovers it on DVD or streaming and wonders why they’d never heard of this super great film before.

The Weinstein Company, whose never-ending saga with Tulip Fever continues to greatly entertain critics, rolled out Taylor Sheridan’s crime drama Wind River to 694 locations, which brought in around $3m. That’ll be good news for a company that’s ahem… in need of an urgent injection of cash. As for another Sundance hit, the festival favourite Patti Cake$, about a plus-sized white rapper from New Jersey, has failed to find an audience, taking in a paltry $66,000. That’ll be bad news for Fox Searchlight, who paid $9.5m for it at the festival, the second biggest deal of this year’s Sundance after Amazon put down over $12m for The Big Sick. Other indie films like Ingrid Goes West and that one where Robert Pattinson didn’t wank off a dog, Good Time are faring better.

It’s been a bleak Summer for the box office, with intakes sitting 13.3% behind what they were this time last year. That’s thanks to some major flops like The Mummy and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (which wasn’t that bad, I swear).

You can check out the rest of the top 10 this weekend here.

What films did you see this week? Do you prefer Ryan Reynolds or Daniel Craig? Why does everyone think King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was abysmal when it was actually pretty fun and nowhere near as evil as The Mummy? Answers in the comments.