Notable Openings This Weekend: Geostorm, Only The Brave, Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, The Snowman, Same Kind of Different as Me
The Snowman and Same Kind of Different as Me are technically wide releases, but those are throwaways. The big three opening this weekend are two natural disasters and Only The Brave. See what I did there?
The Madea movies aren’t total disasters. If you ever want to venture into those waters, they do offer comedic value, both intentional and unintentional. We’ll get to that crazy Tyler Perry later. Let’s start out with the real disaster of the weekend – Geostorm.
While the Rotten Tomatoes theory has been proven wrong in the positive with Blade Runner 2049, it still has merit in the negative sense. Much like The Dark Tower, there weren’t any Geostorm reviews posted the morning of the film’s release. Gee. I wonder why?
Aside from that, let’s count the ways Geostorm is going to flop. The marketing has been non-existent. The trailers blow. Gerard Butler is the guy you get when you want to make a boring action movie. The director here is also Dean Devlin. For those who don’t know, Devlin has been side by side on many Roland Emmerich films. Yeah. They had to get the JV Roland Emmerich to direct this thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tB8vAODdfI
We’re all in agreement this is going to flop, right? We’re moving on.
Going from everything exploding to really big fires, we have Only The Brave. In both my Fall Preview article and the Fall Movie Podcast I’ve been very vocal on how this movie looks generic and whatever. This is a classic case of teasing everyone with an incredible cast, but the movie ends up being a dud, ala Gangster Squad, or that Warren Beatty film from last year that starred everyone in Hollywood.
Judging from the reviews, I may have been wrong on this one.
As a Miles Teller fan, I’d like nothing more than to love this movie. Ever since Whiplash, this guy has gotten a raw deal. Bleed for This got completely screwed over. I’m still not sold on this one, but I want to be surprised. As far as the box office goes, it will do okay, but I have a feeling we’ll see another American Made here: Weak trailers. Movie is actually good. Box Office still underwhelms.
The man who will easily win the weekend is Tyler Perry. If you’re still surprised by this, you’ve been living under multiple rocks for a decade. The Madea movies are what they are. They have a loyal following. Perry makes them for cheap. They clean up. We’ll be getting fifty more Madea movies in our lifetime.
The other two new releases are barely worth mentioning, as they both open in under 2,000 screens. The first is Same Kind of Different as Me with Greg Kinnear and Rene Zellweger. Okay, stop right there. That is the worst movie title in the history of cinema. Imagine a husband and wife thinking about what they want to do on a Saturday night:
Wife: You want to see a movie?
Husband: I don’t know. Maybe. What’s playing?
Wife: Let’s see. Same Kind of Different as Me.
Husband: What? Same Kind of Different — eh, I don’t care. What’s on Netflix?
Exactly.
Finally, we have The Snowman. On the surface, this looks mildly interesting, but it’s getting clobbered by critics. This is something I may have been interested in if word of mouth was good, but this confirms what was already a weak trailer.
There’s no bigger Michael Fassbender fan than me, but here are his last few films:
Alien: Covenant. Song to Song. Assassin’s Creed.
Fassbender is insanely talented and will be fine, but somebody get this guy a great script, for the love of Magneto.
HOW WILL IT ALL BREAK DOWN…
All hail Madea. Other than Madea, Happy Death Day should topple all the new comers. Nothing in life would make me happier than for Blade Runner 2049 to finish ahead of Geostorm this weekend, but I’m not holding my breath.
1. Boo 2! A Madea Halloween – $26 Million
2. Happy Death Day – $14 Million
3. Only the Brave – $10.5 Million
4. Geostorm – $10 Million
5. Blade Runner 2049 – $9 Million
