NEW YORK (AP) — Critics lambasted it and audiences didn’t grade it much better. But despite the turbulence, Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk” managed to open No 1 at the box office with a modest USD12 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
On a quiet weekend, even for the typically frigid movie-going month of January, the top spot went to the Lionsgate thriller starring Mark Wahlberg as a pilot flying an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) and fugitive (Topher Grace) across Alaska. But it wasn’t a particularly triumphant result for Gibson’s directorial follow-up to 2016’s “Hacksaw Ridge.” Reviews (21 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and audience scores (a “C” CinemaScore) were terrible.
President Donald Trump recently named Gibson a “special ambassador” to Hollywood, along with Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone.
Going into the weekend, Hollywood’s attention was more focused on the Sundance Film Festival and on Thursday’s Oscar nominations, which were twice postponed by the wildfires in the Los Angeles region.
The weekend was also a small test as to whether the once more common Oscar “bump” that can sometimes follow nominations still exists. Most contenders have by now completed the bulk of their theatrical runs and are more likely to see an uptick on VOD or streaming.
But the weekend’s most daring gambit was A24 pushing Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” a three–and-a-half-hour epic nominated for 10 Academy Awards, into wide release. Though some executives initially greeted “The Brutalist,” which is running with an intermission, as “un-distributable,” Corbet has said, A24 acquired the film out of the Venice Film Festival and managed solid business, collecting USD6 million in limited release.
In wide release, it earned USD2.9 million — a far from blockbuster sum but the best weekend yet for “The Brutalist.”
The audience was downright miniscule for another best-picture nominee: RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys.” Innovatively shot almost entirely in first-person POV, the Amazon MGM Studios release gathered just USD340,171 in 540 locations after expanding by 300 theaters.
Coming off one of the lowest Martin Luther King Jr. weekends in years, no new releases made a major impact.
Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence,” a well-reviewed horror film shot from the perspective of a ghost inside a suburban home, debuted with USD3.4 million in 1,750 locations. The film, released by Neon and acquired out of last year’s Sundance, was made for just USD2 million.
The top spots otherwise went to holdovers. The Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” in its sixth weekend of release, scored USD8.7 million to hold second place. After starting slow, the Barry Jenkins-directed film has amassed USD626.7 million globally.
“One of Them Days,” the Keke Palmer and SZA led comedy from Sony Pictures, held well in its second weekend, dropping just 32 per cent with USD8 million in ticket sales. In recent years, few comedies have found success on the big screen, but “One of Them Days” has proven an exception.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
