film / tv / politics / social media / lists celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / politics / web / celeb

Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider.jpg

Box Office Report: I Only Wakanda Be With You

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 18, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 18, 2018 |


Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider.jpg

Look, eventually I’m going to run out of Wakanda puns for these reports. Or, at the very least, they’ll become more painful with each passing week. It’s just the sacrifice you’ll have to make if you want to keep up to date with all the box office gossip. What, are you going to go elsewhere… Please don’t go elsewhere.

Anyhoo, yes that is five weeks at the top for Black Panther, which took in another $27m domestically. Believe it or not, that makes it the first film to accomplish that feat since a little Biggest Movie of All Time called Avatar. Although I guarantee more people are excited for Black Panther sequels than whatever is going on in Pandora. Internationally, it’s soared past $1.1bn. I know we’re all expecting the next Avengers film to be the highest grossing movie of 2018, but surely this will be the second? There’s no way it’ll fall out of the top 5 unless people really are all that revved up for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Debuting in second place this weekend was the new reboot of Tomb Raider. Alas, it did not break the video game movie curse with its middling reviews, but it still did solidly with $23.5m in its domestic opening weekend. Internationally, it’s doing strongly and has already made back its budget and then some. The next task is to see if it can hold on strongly enough to warrant a sequel. Honestly, I still think the Angelina Jolie films are damn good fun.

Making a better than expected debut at number 3 is inspirational Christian drama I Can Only Imagine, with $17m. Allegedly, this is based on some Christian rock song I’ve never heard of, but hey, these movies are super cheap to make and are catnip for their specific demographics. As long as it doesn’t descend into condescending straw-man nonsense about how atheists are Bond style evil geniuses trying to blow up God, I’m easy.

Alas, it looks like A Wrinkle in Time may continue to underwhelm in its domestic market, having fallen two spots to number 4 with $16.5m. That’s a 50% cut in its revenue. Look, I’m still rooting for it - it hasn’t come out in the vast majority of foreign markets yet, including the UK and China - and I am still salty at how so many Film Twitter bros have decided to make this film and its director their target. I can’t hear that whistling noise but my dog is going wild. Ava shall triumph anyway.

Coming in at number 5 is Love, Simon with $11.5m. It’s doing as well as Fox expected, and the CinemaScore is at A+ with audiences. I think this could have a real slow burn staying power and word of mouth impact. Believe me, if I was 16 again, I’d be spending every weekend seeing this film. Well, in between showing off my film nerd credentials with David Lynch screenings. Shut up, I had a reputation to uphold.

In other interesting top 10 news, Red Sparrow is doing way worse than I thought it would. Three weeks into its release and it’s only made $39m. For a film with a $69m budget and one of the biggest stars on the planet in the lead, that should be way higher. Is the A-List mould of the box office dying? Or did the reviews simply trump Jennifer Lawrence’s star power?

One film doing very week this week is The Death of Stalin, which saw a 214% increase in its box office as it opened to an extra 28 theatres. Definitely an indie hit here. Thanks, Putin!

This week sees the release of Midnight Sun, a film that has nothing to do with Twilight, the robots punching monsters feast of apocalypse cancelling, Pacific Rim Uprising, a movie about Jesus’s apostle Paul, a new film from definitely not retired director Steven Soderbergh, and… erm… Sherlock Gnomes. And you thought my puns were bad.

If you want to check out the rest of the weekend box office, click here.

What films did you watch this weekend? Any Wakanda pun suggestions better than the ones I’ve been using? Are you surprised Black Panther has held out this long at number 1? Do you also think the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider films get a bad rap? Answers in the comments.