“I think I can, I think I can… be the best movie at the box office,” says Sony’s original action movie that could.
Brad Pitt’s ‘Bullet Train’ should hit #1 on local charts. The film earned $12.6 million from 4,357 locations on Friday and is projecting a $30 million debut. That’s a solid showing for an original film with no franchise ties or multiverse shenanigans, but the film will need to continue running in August to recoup its $90 million production budget.
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The film’s star-studded cast should help with that. Along with Pete, the ensemble also includes names like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Joey King, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon and Benito A. Martinez Ocasio, aka Latin music superstar Bad Bunny.
“Bullet Train” is being seen as something of a test of the type of film audiences will flock to theaters for. The R-rated actioner will target older men, the most reliable demographic in terms of regular movie theater attendance since the COVID-19 lockdown eased. However, with a marketing campaign that touts a colorful cast of characters instead of any notable intellectual property, “Bullet Train” isn’t a surefire hit.
“Bullet Train” earned a lukewarm response from critics, receiving a 41% approval rating from top critics on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge was mixed about the film, writing that it was “trying [its] the most daring to channel the likes of Tarantino and Ritchie, even if the dialogue and mock-British accents aren’t strong enough to merit such comparisons.”
Audiences are more receptive to “Bullet Train.” The film received a “B+” rating from research firm Cinema Score, indicating solid approval among moviegoers. With the August slate looking fairly light in terms of high-profile releases, “Bullet Train” should be able to take advantage of a quiet theatrical landscape in the coming weeks. Paramount’s “The Lost City,” which starred “Bullet Train” actors Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum and Pitt in a supporting role, also opened to $30 million earlier this spring before eventually passing $100 million domestically , indicating that the audience will still be spinning for audiences without franchise ties.
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Directed by former Pitt understudy David Leitch, who has since helmed action flicks like Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, the film features the star as a hitman who accepts a simple mission aboard a high-speed train in Japan. However, he soon discovers that a group of assassins on board have conflicting missions.
Meanwhile, Universal’s “Easter Sunday,” the weekend’s other new wide release, didn’t make much of an impression in its debut, earning $2 million on Friday. The studio is projecting a muted debut of $5 million from 3,175 locations for the comedian Joe Coy comedy, which would place the film in eighth place in the local charts.
“Easter Sunday” stars Coy as a struggling actor and father attending an Easter celebration in his dysfunctional Filipino American family. The comedy has a modest $17 million before marketing and distribution costs, so Universal will be crossing its fingers for solid word-of-mouth and a month without competing releases to give the film some passable legs.
The Warner Bros. release. “DC League of Super-Pets” looks set to take second place. The film earned $3.35 million on Friday, down 64% from its opening day last week. The animated film was somewhat lackluster, especially for a film featuring DC Comics iconography (even if it follows the furry friends of the Justice League). With the film’s current domestic gross standing at $38 million, “Super Pets” still has a ways to go to recoup its $90 million production budget.
Not helping matters for “Super-Pets” is the continued success of Universal’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” which has remained a big hit with audiences since its Fourth of July weekend debut. The “Despicable Me” spinoff looks set to take fifth place in the domestic charts this weekend, falling just 38% in its sixth weekend. The film’s domestic earnings currently stand at an impressive $330 million.
Universal’s “Nope” looks set to take bronze, projecting $8 million in its third weekend. Jordan Peele’s sci-fi thriller should surpass $100 million domestically sometime next week — a remarkable feat for an original film marketed primarily on its director’s behalf.
Disney’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” is aiming for fourth place, adding $2.2 million to its Friday cume. The Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is currently the sixth-biggest domestic release of the year, pushing its domestic gross past $315 million this weekend.
Finally, it looks like “Top Gun: Maverick” may finally break out of the top five at the domestic box office for the first time this weekend, though it’s in a close race for fifth place with “The Rise of Gru.” Paramount’s blockbuster predicts another weak decline – down just 21% – in its eleventh weekend at the box office. With $657 million in the bank from North America, the Tom Cruise sequel is likely to surpass Titanic’s $659 million gross today to become the seventh-biggest film in domestic box office history.
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