Welcome to the Box Office Oracle–where new movies are pitted against each other for box office supremacy and only one can claim victory. Each week, I will be doing a quick box office prediction for all wide new releases. Sorry, obscure indie films I’ve never heard of, but you aren’t going to be discussed here unless you become big.
This is also something I’m going to keep as free of “controversy” if I can. This means that if, I don’t know, Jon Voight is voicing an evil government agent talking bear in a DreamWorks movie, I’m not going to make a bunch of Trump jokes. If a Tom Cruise actioner comes out, I’m not going to make a bunch of Scientology cracks. You get the idea. I want for this to be kept fun and simple.
So, without any further discussion, let’s go into this weekend’s two big new releases, The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix.
The Secret Life of Pets 2
2016’s The Secret Life of Pets was something of a box office marvel, surprising almost everyone when it opened to $104 million. To put some perspective on that, it scored the biggest opening weekend ever for an original property (as in something that wasn’t a sequel or based off of a book or anything of that sort), and remains one of only seven animated films to cross the $100 mark after three days of release. In addition to this, it was also quite leggy, finishing with $368 million. Critics liked the film fine, but the key to its success seems to have primarily been that it was really cute.
A sequel was naturally inevitable, especially in these franchise-heavy days that we live in, with sarcastic yet insecure dog Max, now used to sharing his owner with another dog, facing a brand new threat to his affection when his master gets married and has a baby. Or at least that appears to be the plot. Universal has been marketing this movie a lot, to the point where I’m worried they’ve given all the best jokes away, but the story seems to be all over the place, including some sort of character arc that involves a now domesticated Snowball the bunny (formally committed to the downfall of humanity until he got adopted by a little girl at the end of the last film) becoming a superhero and falling in love with a cocker spaniel. Newcomers to the already impressive voice cast from the first Pets include Tiffany Haddish as the aforementioned cocker spaniel and Harrison Ford (in his first ever animated role!) as a grouchy sheepdog. Patton Oswalt takes over for Louis C.K. as Max, and from the trailers at least, he appears to be a good match for the character.
Will Pets 2 match the massive amount of cabbage that the first film made? Probably not. The original Pets opened in early July, and had the entire weekend to itself. Pets 2 is opening against a new X-Men movie, will have to contend with Disney’s already successful Aladdin remake, and will face Toy Story 4 in a few weeks. Still, as the first big animated flick to hit theaters since arguably How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Pets 2 is going to fill an open void, and should open to around $80 million.
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Go: The original Pets was quite enjoyable for what it was, and newcomer Harrison Ford sounds like he’s been perfectly cast here. “There. You’re cured. Hallelujah.”
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Stay Away:
Illumination–the studio behind Pets–also produced Despicable Me 3, an amusing enough but also incredibly unfocused sequel which had like five different plots going on at once. Pets 2, with its scattershot marketing campaign, could potentially deliver the same.
Today’s Lucky Lotto Numbers: $80 million opening; $240 million finish.
Dark Phoenix
Welp, this film has certainly run into a few hurdles, hasn’t it?
Originally set for release last November, Dark Phoenix was then pushed back to February before it was again pushed back to this summer, all the while facing off against a seemingly endless amount of negative buzz. I’m of the opinion that such matters are normally blown out of proportion–look at how well Aladdin is doing after all of those click-bait articles about how “creepy” Will Smith’s Genie was–but in the case of Dark Phoenix, it appears it might be legitimate.
This time, set in the 90’s despite featuring the same young cast members of First Class which took place during the 60’s, the X-Men blast off into outer space or something, some shit goes down, and Jean Grey starts feeling really weird and stuff. Eventually, she becomes the DARK PHOENIX, and Professor X and the others must decide what they have to do when their good friend becomes the potential enemy of the entire planet.
So, yeah, it’s basically the same comic book story that was already adapted in 2006’s The Last Stand, and because of that, there is an extreme sense of “been there, done that” here, especially since Dark Phoenix appears to bringing very little new to the table (well, apart from Jessica Chastain as some sort of villain, but the trailers are kind of vague about who she is). Having Sophie Turner–aka Sansa Stark–as Jean Grey here is certainly appealing, but her character was only just introduced into the franchise in 2016’s Apocalypse, and again, the whole “how will they stop the Phoenix?” suspense factor the story requires has kind of been drained by the fact that we’ve already seen Wolverine have to kill the character before in another movie.
But the major problem Dark Phoenix is facing is critics, who have given the movie a hilariously low Rotten Tomatoes score of 20% “fresh” as I’m writing this. Granted, I only put but so much stock in such things–I was surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this year’s much ridiculed Hellboy reboot–but in this case we are talking about a movie with a $200 million price tag. Audiences are going to have to really like this one if it’s going to have any shot of reaching that number stateside, and unfortunately, the X-Men franchise is pretty terrible when it comes to legs (well, unless you count the Deadpool films, which I don’t). Tracking has Phoenix making around $50 million or so, but that was before the review embargo was lifted, which I think is going to hurt the film’s opening. Look for $41 million.
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Go: The film did enjoy some positive buzz after its presentation at CinmaCon earlier this year; the previews do feature some pretty flashy superhero action. And Sophie Turner was probably one of the more underrated cast members of Game of Thrones, so more power to her.
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Stay Away: This is by far the worst reviewed X-Men movie to date…and that includes 2009’s X-Men Borigins: Wolverine! And speaking as someone who actually liked The Last Stand, I don’t really see the point in telling the Dark Phoenix story all over again.
Today’s Lucky Lotto Numbers: $41 million opening; $105 million finish.
Other Fun Stuff…
* The original Secret Life of Pets was elevated greatly by a wonderfully jazzy musical score by Alexandre Desplat. Among its many furry funny faces, Kevin Hart’s murderous Snowball was a highlight, but Jenny Slate’s lovesick poodle Gidget and Albert Brook’s lonely bird of prey Tiberius were perhaps even funnier. An out-of-nowhere parody of Grease which happened via a sausage-induced hallucination was also a big laugh for me.
* I’ve actually met the mother of Pets director Chris Renaud. I ran into her at the movie theater when seeing The Hobbit way back in 2012. I told her I had enjoyed The Lorax and Despicable Me. With a twinkle in her eye, she happily told me they were making a sequel. Nice person.
* My ranking of the X-Films, excluding the solo Wolverine and Deadpool outings: X2, First Class, The Last Stand, Days of Future Past, and X-Men. I still need to watch my Apocalypse Blu-ray.
* I actually never watched the 90’s X-Men cartoon which everyone seems to praise. One thing that’s kept me from it is the animation looking kind of bumpy compared to the stuff that DC and Disney were producing at the time. Should I seek out the series?
* Again, while it has its fair share of people who are decidedly not fans, I thought The Last Stand was an overall satisfying ending to the original trilogy. Wolverine killing Jean Grey is a very powerful sequence, fittingly spectacular and heartbreaking at the same time, and I love the final scene of Magneto playing chess by himself. And even though many objected to Rogue “curing” herself, for this version of the character I think it was an appropriate ending for her (though I guess I can get why some people were upset about it if they strictly see the mutants as allegories for homosexuals, something I think the first two X-Men movies were a little too “on the nose” about).
So what are you guys seeing this weekend? Mutants? Talking dogs? Godzilla? Avengers for the tenth time? Sound off in the comments!
Next week: The Men in Black not-reboot/not-sequel relaunch opens; Shaft multiplies himself times three; Amazon tries to get into the summer movie game with Late Night.