TFR Ticker: 3 Whiffs. No One Topples The Turtles And Their Guardians.
Chris Scalzo
Say "Cheese"!
The Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the big winner again this weekend and a sequel has already been announced. You have no one but yourselves to blame. Meanwhile, ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ continues to motor right along, with a good chance to be the number one grossing film of 2014 (which is more a testament to this year’s poor performance, though August has been pretty solid so far).
Three new films were released this past week: ‘The Expendables 3’, ‘Let’s Be Cops’, and ‘The Giver’. Let’s start with the biggest disappointment, ‘The Expendables 3’. What the heck happened? Boasting the largest big name cast for an action movie since probably ever, ‘Expendables 3’ came in at 4th place. Fourth! The film was never expected to be some massive hit, but that is a major drop from the first two films opening bows, $34.8 million and $28.6 million respectively. It had an A- Cinemascore, so the people that did see it, certainly liked it, but there’s a very good chance it’ll drop 60+ percent next week. I guess Bruce Willis was right to not join in this time.
So what accounts for the drop? Sequel fatigue? Poor marketing? A DVD-quality torrent of the film that’s been online for weeks? No Kurt Russell? Perhaps it was the PG-13 rating? People do go into ‘The Expendables’ movies looking for over the top, violent action. It’ll be interesting to see if they attempt to broaden their viewership alienated their fan base.
‘Let’s Be Cops’ came in at #3. The first big comedy since last month’s dreadful ‘Sex Tape’, the buddy comedy benefited from a huge advertising push, a smart idea, and a laugh filled trailer. Sadly the reviews have not been kind though (10% on Rotten Tomatoes).
Rounding out the field of new releases, the young adult sci-fi drama, ‘The Giver’ comes in at #5. Based on the novel of the same name about a kid who’s responsible for maintaining the memories of life before everyone embraced the Sameness, and his struggles with this knowledge. ‘The Giver’ certainly does not appear to have grabbed the YA market that’s all the rage now, with reviews calling it generic and dull (even though the Dude is in it).
You can see the full top 10 list below.