As I have mentioned before on this blog, when a studio refuses to screen a film in advance to critics and the media, that typically means only one thing – that the film is likely awful and the studio doesn’t want any negative reviews to come out before, or on the day the film opens, influencing any potential filmgoers’ minds into avoiding the film.
Now usually this happens with lower-budgeted, mainly genre films, such as horror and comedies – films that, in terms of financial risk, are not as important to a studio, unlike a bigger budgeted films. Those films, no matter how bad they are, always get screened in advance because they simply cost too much to make and they’re still bound to get a few positive reviews. Even Universal screened “Warcraft” in advance, and Warners, two weeks ago, sent out screening invites for their “The Legend of Tarzan,” despite the fact that it’s likely going to be one of biggest b.o. bombs of the summer, with one critic in the UK who has seen it, calling it “atrocious.”
So it was a real surprise when Fox very quietly (or more accurately, rather timidly) announced that they would not be advance-screening their $200 million summer would-be franchise “Independence day: Resurgence” – a 20-years-too-late sequel of the very popular and successful 1996 film.
Well, actually, what they really announced was that they would be having some media screenings of the film, but they would happen on Friday morning, the very day the film was opening. However any critic who wanted to see the film was free to buy a ticket and go see it at late night Thursday screenings that were open to the public.
And that’s what they did.
Unfortunately for Fox, there happens to be this new thing they may not have heard about called “the internet,” which has something called “social media.” So, late night Thursday, this internet thing was being bombarded with tweets, Facebook posts and even reviews by critics who gleefully tore “Resurgence” apart, calling it not just possibly the worst film of the year, but one of stupidest, most incompetently directed, wretchedly put together films they’ve seen in a long time.
What’s even worse for Fox is that, many critics also reported on the audience’s reaction to the film, revealing that, at Thursday night screenings, people “groaned” audibly after the end of the film, and were totally bored, and, in some cases, even used profanity, swearing at the film. Not good.
No wonder Big Willie himself, Will Smith, who was hoped to reprise his character of Captain Steve Hiller from the first “ID,” wasn’t in the film. The rumor going around was that he wanted too much money than Fox was willing to pay him. However the director of “Resurgence,” Roland Emmerich (“ID,” “10,000 BC,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” “White House Down”), said that the reason why Smith wasn’t in the film was that they had originally written Hiller into the first draft of the script, but “decided to take a different direction” and write him out. If that makes sense.
Most likely, Smith read the script and said: “No way! There’s not enough money in the world for me to get involved with this load of crap. Besides I’m still recovering from ‘After Earth.’ I won’t even let Jaden appear in this film.”
So how did “Resurgence” do? Surprisingly not that great. It came in second this weekend, with $41.6 million, which is lower than the first “ID” film, which made over $50 million ($76 million in today’s dollars), and went on to gross over $300 million domestically, and another $511 million overseas. There’s no way that “Resurgence” is going to even match that with its opening numbers, once word of mouth gets around about what a piece of dreck it is. The only saving grace is that “Resurgence” will probably make around $150 million overseas in its opening weekend; but whatever it makes internationally won’t be enough to avoid it being a huge flop for Fox. And expect the film to have one of the biggest second weekend b.o. drop-offs next weekend.
In first place, as was expected, is Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Dory” with over $73 million this weekend, for a total so far of $286 million, making it the fifth highest-grossing Pixar film to date. The way it’s going, it could very likely become the highest-grossing Pixar film ever, beating out “Toy Story 3,” which made $415 million domestically.
Coming in third was Warners comedy “Central Intelligence,” with $18.3 million and $69 million total to date, heading for over $100 million at the b.o. And it has already grossed over $14 million in its opening overseas b.o. with Germany being the highest opener to date.
In fourth is Sony’s modestly budgeted ($17 million) babe vs the shark thriller “The Shallows,” which pulled in a respectable $16 million. In fact, Sony actually moved up the release date of the film to go up against “Resurgence” since Sony smelled “blood in the water” so the speak, and saw there was an opening for it.
In fifth was Matthew McConaughey’s white-savior-freeing-all-the-black people-and-ending-slavery Civil War drama “The Free State of Jones,” which pulled in a lousy $7.7 million, and will be gone from most screens by next weekend.
1) Finding Dory BV $73,234,746 Total: $286,552,649
2) Independence Day: Resurgence Fox $41,600,000
3) Central Intelligence WB $18,370,000 Total: $69,302,458
4) The Shallows Sony $16,700,000
5) Free State of Jones STX $7,772,000
6) The Conjuring 2 WB $7,705,000 Total: $86,906,434
7) Now You See Me 2 LG/S $5,650,000 Total: $52,054,214
8) X-Men: Apocalypse Fox $2,475,000 Total: $151,126,991
9) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Par. $2,400,000 Total: $77,117,555
10) Alice Through the Looking Glass BV $2,147,144 Total: $74,574,007
11) Warcraft Uni. $2,130,000 Total: $43,886,470
12) Me Before You WB $1,950,000 Total: $51,252,751