The far-left Deadline is screaming “amazing” at F9‘s $66 million opening weekend. I’m not so sure.
See if my logic holds up…
Late last month, A Quiet Place Part II opened to $48 million over the weekend (not counting Memorial Day), which put it pretty close to its predecessor. Back in April of 2018, the original opened to $50.2 million.
Further, allow me to go out on a limb and suggest that if Part II had not opened over Memorial Day weekend, it might have out-grossed the original over its opening Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. After all, how many people who might have otherwise seen it on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday chose to wait until Monday?
So my question is this… If A Quiet Place Part II was able to attract more than 90 percent of its predecessor’s opening weekend audience, why didn’t F9?
You can’t tell me that the Quiet Place audience is less afraid of the Wuhan Flu. That would be absurd.
Nevertheless, F9’s reported $66 million opening (if that number holds) fell way below its predecessor’s opening — the $99 million earned 2017’s Fate of the Furious.
Listen, I have no skin in this game. While I was disappointed with F9, I have no desire to see it fail. The only garbage I want to see fail is Woke Garbage, which is anti-entertainment. F9 is not woke, and other than co-star John Cena’s sniveling suck-up to China, the Fast Saga goes out of its way to remain apolitical. This is why my affection for the franchise reaches back to the 2001 original, to The Fast and the Furious, a movie I’ve re-watched more times than I can count and may do again this weekend. So it’s not about that.
My only point here is media spin.
If you think the national political media is dishonest, the entertainment media is much worse. They’re almost all a bunch of Woke Marxists who exist only to live within the dark confines of elite Hollywood’s backside, which comes with access to Tinseltown glamour and advertising dollars. This means that the benefits of dishonestly spinning a $66 million F9 opening as “amazing” are huge.
And maybe it is “amazing.” Maybe I’m wrong. But when I see a Quiet Place Part II attract nearly the same size audience as Part I, my brain gets an itch, and I start wondering things…. Things such as… If A Quiet Place Part II can attract the same audience as Part I, why can’t everyone else?
Which brings me to this wonderment: Doesn’t A Quiet Place Part II prove that if you release a movie people want to see, fear of the China Virus won’t stop them from seeing it?
Here’s something else…
F9 opened overseas weeks and weeks ago. But so far, its international take is just $293 million. There’s more money coming from overseas, but not a whole lot and its predecessor grossed a whopping $1 billion overseas.
Now get this…
In China alone — and China’s box office is close to normal — The Fate of the Furious grossed $393 million. F9 opened in China over a month ago, so its run there is over, and it grossed just $203 million.
Let me leave you with this final thought…
Last August, in the heart of the pandemic, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (a movie I hated) grossed $305 million overseas. F9‘s going to top that, but not by much. That is striking. Compared to August, today’s overseas box office is in much better shape, and F9’s overseas box office haul is not. What does that tell you?
All I’m saying is don’t buy the hype; don’t buy the entertainment media’s spin. The truth might be a mix of both the pandemic and franchise fatigue, but a whole lot more of my money is on franchise fatigue.
You see, it all started with chapter eight, with The Fate of the Furious. Then it increased with the spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw. Then it doubled down in F9… And when I say “it,” I mean absurd stunts and action sequences that have as little respect for physics as for the audience.
The Fast Saga has gotten dumb, breathtakingly dumb, insultingly dumb, off-puttingly dumb. If Universal Studios and producer-star Vin Diesel don’t want to face the humiliation of an F10 box office crash, they might want to ignore the media spin and face up to that fact.
My last piece of unsolicited advice is this… It was the Mission: Impossible template that exploded a street-racing franchise into a global phenomenon. So why not stick to that template? The Mission: Impossible movies have managed to get bigger and more exciting without getting dumber. If that doesn’t convince you, then take a look at how the grounded Casino Royale gave new life to the Bond franchise.
It can be done.
Flying a car into outer space to crash into a satellite?
Morons.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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