The closest thing to “good news” for new movies this weekend came in the form of Sony’s overseas debut of Uncharted.
Uncharted, Sony’s Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg video game adaptation, which opens domestically on Thursday night (press screening tomorrow), opened in 15 markets overseas. It ranked #1 in each of those territories, as the $120 million actioner earned $21.5 million in 5,300 theaters. The film is tracking 12% ahead of Eternals,18% higher than Black Widow and 21% over Shang-Ch in the like for like market comparison. We’ll see if that means anything in the long run, but video game movies ( Resident Evil: Afterlife, Need For Speed, Rampage, etc.) do massively skew overseas, to the point that it’s arguably why Hollywood kept making them even amid mixed (at best) box office results. If it performs well enough, Tom Holland could have the top two spots at the domestic box office next weekend. That’s where the good news for new movies ends. Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile topped the domestic weekend box office with just $12.8 million. Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, released in November of 2017 back when Fox wasn’t yet under the Disney umbrella, opened with $28.8 million and legged out to $102 million domestic. Even with better reviews and the same formula that worked 4.25 years ago, Death on the Nile opened 55% lower than Murder on the Orient Express. What’s terrifying is that, unlike a lot of Covid-era whiffs, I’d argue the star-studded, glamorous adult-skewing murder mystery would have been a solid hit in pre-Covid times. I mean, Snake Eyes and The Suicide Squad were always doomed, but this one… this should have been a hit.
