Predator: Badlands Stalks the Box Office
This is the scoring recap for Week Three of Vulture’s Movies Fantasy League. If you want to compete for pride and prizes against more than 18,000 other film buffs, there’s still time to join: Visit the league hub for information on how to play, and/or click the button below to submit an entry.
Feel free to chalk up Predator: Badlands’ top placement at the box office this weekend to the IP value of its title character, or to director Dan Trachtenberg’s success with the Predator sequel Prey a few years ago. But I’m going to go ahead and call this an Elle Fanning achievement, as she plays two characters, including the female lead. Plus it allows me to mention that this is Fanning’s fourth movie to open at no. 1, after Super 8, Maleficent, and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Badlands’ $40 million opening is the best opening-weekend tally since the MFL season kicked off. Combined with the bonus points for finishing the weekend at no. 1 and clearing the $25 million threshold, the film brought in 70 points for the 1,443 people who drafted it.
In second place and showing remarkable staying power (dropping less than 9% from last weekend) is Regretting You, the Allison Williams-starring romantic drama from the author of It Ends with Us. (I’m crediting the film to Allison in the hopes of stoking a rivalry between her and Elle). With $38 million cumulatively after three weeks, it’s motoring towards that $50 million threshold bonus, while teaching a valuable lesson about drafting Colleen Hoover book adaptations in the future.
A trio of films currently sit only a few million away from the $75 million dollar mark, which would earn them a 15 point bonus: Black Phone 2 climbed up to $70 million by pulling in an additional $5 million over the holidays. Further down the list sit Tron: Ares ($71 million) and One Battle After Another ($69 million), which will need to grind it out to $75 million.
Notable debuts include the Russell Crowe-Rami Malek post-WWII drama Nuremberg and the Amazon-MGM biographical drama Sarah’s Oil, both of which made $4 million. However, seeing as Nuremberg cost $10 for the 1,746 people who drafted it, the better value was clearly the $1 paid by 102 Oil-heads.
After a disappointing $3 million take upon expanding onto two thousand screens last weekend, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia showed strong staying power, pulling its cumulative box-office tally to $12 million.
And finally, tough news for the Sydney Sweeney crowd, as her awards-hopeful sports biopic Christy brought in just $1 million on more than two thousand screens. Where was the Sydney Sweeney crowd? Or do they only show up to argue about ads for jeans? By contrast, Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, made more than double Christy’s take. While a $2.8 million opening isn’t blowing the doors off, Die My Love is a psychological thriller about post-partum psychosis, fire, and somehow Jennifer Lawrence winding up in yet another house with an unbraced sink. A crowd-pleasing sports movie making less than half of that on essentially the same number of screens? Not great.
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Release calendar
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t: November 14
The Running Man: November 14
Jay Kelly: November 14
Keeper: November 14
Arco: November 14
Come See Me in the Good Light: November 14 (Apple TV+)
Left-Handed Girl: November 14
Sirāt: November 14
Wicked: For Good: November 21
Train Dreams: November 21
Rental Family: November 21
A Magnificent Life: November 21
Zodiac Killer Project: November 21
Upcoming awards
Gotham Awards: December 1
New York Film Critics Circle announcement: December 2
Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations: December 3
Critics Choice Awards nominations: December 5
Golden Globe nominations: December 8
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