“A Minecraft Movie” will lead the box office again as several newcomers, including Universal and Blumhouse’s pulse-quickening “Drop” and Rami Malek-led spy thriller “The Amateur,” open this weekend on the big screen.
Warner Bros. and Legendary’s PG comedy “Minecraft” topped the box office last weekend with a record-breaking $162.7 million, the biggest debut of the year and largest ever for a video game adaptation. In its second weekend, “A Minecraft Movie” is projecting a 50% to 60% decline with ticket sales around $65 million to $82 million. However given its trajectory, box office watchers wouldn’t be surprised if it lands in the realm of Universal’s video game smash “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (which declined by just 37% in its second weekend with $92 million) or “Barbie” (another unexpected blockbuster that opened to $162 million and dropped by 42% in its sophomore outing with $93 million). “Minecraft” has generated more than $320 million globally so far and will soon overtake Disney and Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($412 million) as the year’s biggest Hollywood release.
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In terms of new nationwide offerings, Disney and 20th Century’s “The Amateur” will compete with Angel Studios’ animated faith-based “The King of Kings” for second place, with each film targeting $12 million to $14 million to start. Meanwhile “Drop” and A24’s “Warfare” are expected to collect around $6 million to $8 million.
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“The Amateur,” which cost $60 million to produce, is aiming for $25 million to $30 million globally by Sunday. Malek, an Oscar winner for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” plays a CIA analyst who hunts down the killers behind a terrorist attack that took the life of his wife. Reviews have been mixed with Variety’s chief film critic Owen Glieberman describing the vigilante adventure as “Bourne” meets “Death Wish” meets “Munich” meets “The Killer.” He wrote, “the movie isn’t badly made (it’s never less than watchable), but a lot of pulp has been stuffed into its blender.”
“The King of Kings” is the latest release from Angel Studios, the faith-based distribution company behind “The Sound of Freedom” and this year’s “Brave the Dark” and “Rule Breakers.” Angel Studios is offering a “Kids Go Free” initiative to boost attendance among families, allowing children to see the movie for free with the purchase of one adult ticket. Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill and Pierce Brosnan lead the voice cast of “King of Kings,” which follows young author Charles Dickens who narrates the biography of Jesus Christ.
A24 is behind “Warfare,” a visceral story of boots-on-the-ground combat from “Civil War” director Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza. Based on Mendoza’s experiences as a former Navy SEAL, the film captures in real time a platoon of soldiers as they navigate insurgent territory. The ensemble, a who’s who of up-and-comers, includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (“Reservation Dogs”), Will Poulter (“We’re the Millers”), Cosmo Jarvis (“Shogun”), Joseph Quinn (“A Quiet Place Day One”), Kit Connor (“Heartstopper”), Noah Centineo (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”), Michael Gandolfini (“The Many Saints of Newark”) and Charles Melton (“May December”).
“Warfare” has positive reviews (a 92% Rotten Tomatoes average) with the New Yorker critic Justin Chang praising the “unexpected yet alchemical fusion of talents” of the co-directors. “Garland brings tremendous formal acumen and, perhaps by dint of his Britishness, a preternatural aversion to American jingoism,” he wrote. “Mendoza leans on his own arduous experience of the 2006 Ramadi evacuation.”
Critical sentiment could also help word-of-mouth for “Drop,” a twisted thriller from “Freaky” director Christopher Landon. The well-reviewed, $11 million-budgeted film follows a widowed mom named Violet (“The White Lotus” breakout Meghann Fahy) who receives mysterious phone messages while she’s on a first date with Henry (Brandon Sklenar from “It Ends With Us”). Whoever is sending them is diabolical; they threaten to kill her son and sister unless she first murders the man across the dinner table. Variety’s Siddhant Adlakha praised “Drop” as a “silly pulpy mystery entirely sure of its own conceit,” adding that “tech paranoia and the looming specter of abuse create[s] something surprisingly taut and entertaining.”
