In the face of two new releases already stamped as mega-hits, Sound Freedom not only remained in the weekend’s top five, it grossed another $20 million and nearly tied with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’s second weekend.
The glamorous and girly Barbie (at least that’s how it was sold—more on this below) topped the box office with a stunning $161 million opening weekend. Behind it sits Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a three-hour, densely-plotted, R-rated historical drama that opened to an incredible $77 million.
Will Nolan finally win his overdue Oscar? Will one of the only filmmakers who respects the intelligence of his audience with smart and original properties finally get the recognition he deserves?
Other than Tenet, which I flat-out hated, Nolan has never delivered anything less than a good-to-great movie. With Oppenheimer, he’s threaded the needle again: a critical and box office hit. The only thing standing in Nolan’s way with the Academy is that he’s the thing Hollywood hates most: a wildly successful and talented straight, white male.
Dead Reckoning held pretty well for a blockbuster in its second weekend, dropping just 54 percent with a $25 million haul. That will bring part seven of this 27-year-old franchise to a domestic total of $124 million. Not great. This is no Top Gun: Maverick. It’s the overseas box office that will make or break this one.
However, this weekend’s big box office story is still Sound of Freedom. In its third weekend, the Angel Studios’ phenomenon dropped just 26 percent on 3,285 screens, bringing in another $20 million. By Monday, this $15 million-budgeted independent film THAT DISNEY DUMPED will have earned an astonishing $124 million.
In sixth place sits Indiana Jones and the Dial of Kathleen Kennedy Needs To Be Fired. A fourth-weekend haul of just $7 million brings its domestic total to a humiliating $159 million. Indiana Jones and the Dial of No One Wants to See Indiana Jones Emasculated By Fleabag is also doornail dead overseas. The Disney Grooming Institute is looking at a loss of a quarter of a billion —with a “B”—dollars (you can check my math here). Only a talentless prig enslaved by her sexual fetishes and identity politics like Kennedy could turn one of the most beloved film franchises of all time into a box office bomb.
From what I’m hearing, Barbie is all kinds of woke. So how is something so stridently anti-man and gay making so much money?
Is Get Woke, Go Broke dead?
First off, Barbie wasn’t sold as woke. It was sold as glamorous escapism, a fish-out-water comedy filled with bright colors and beautiful people. Also, Barbie is its own thing—an original movie. Therefore, unlike all of those smug sequels and remakes that criticize the originals, destroy the heroes we love, and then flop at a rate of around 100 percent, Barbie carries none of that baggage.
Hey, it could be that Barbie has found a way to sell man-hating woketardery to the masses. Or it could be that—thanks to a savvy marketing campaign that sold glamour and color—this is the exception that proves the rule. I stand with the latter. The good news is that Barbie will encourage a slew of filmmakers to double down on woke, which means we get to watch a lot more movies flop.
Watching movies flop…? That’s true entertainment.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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