Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters earned almost $20 million in its opening weekend, proving that I’ve completely misunderstood human nature my whole life. I haven’t felt this alienated from my fellow man since the last time someone mentioned any of today’s popular television or music or children’s names. Hansel/Gretel’s opening was three million better than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and while critics hated it (15 percent on RottenTomatoes), audiences… well, audiences thought it was just sort of meh too, giving it a B cinemascore. Hooray for a dearth of options!
Elsewhere, Parker landed in fifth with just $7 million, even worse than the last Stafe movie. It’s all part of my thesis, No One Actually Likes J-Lo. Below even that was Movie 43, with just $5 million.
In seventh place, star-studded comedy anthology Movie 43 tanked with just $5 million. That’s lower than practically any comparable titles, including spoof comedy Disaster Movie ($5.8 million). The audience skewed younger (59 percent under 25 years of age) and about even on gender (51 percent male), and they gave the movie an atrocious “D” CinemaScore. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Yep, even stoned teenagers hated it. It should be noted, though, that it only cost $6 million to make. Still, the savage reviews (5% on RT) were mean enough that the Farrelly Brothers (who produced and directed a segment) felt compelled to answer back::
To the critics: Movie 43 is not the end of the world. It’s just a $6-million movie where we tried to do something different. Now back off. P
— Farrelly Brothers (@farrellybros) January 27, 2013
To the critics: You always complain that Hollywood never gives you new stuff, and then when you get it, you flip out. Lighten up. P
— Farrelly Brothers (@farrellybros) January 27, 2013
Seeing that, I actually felt bad about not seeing Movie 43 and just assuming everyone was right instead of deciding for myself. After all, the type of movie film that critics get wrong most often are sophomoric comedies. Dick jokes are supposed to be vulgar and silly and kind of bad, but try getting a film critic who takes a picture of himself in a super-serious pose in front of all his Kurosawa books to admit liking a dick joke. Your Highness was everything a movie like that should be and three out of four critics still hated it.
But then I remembered why I hadn’t seen Movie 43. The distributor didn’t screen it for critics. Why is it always the filmmakers not screening their movies for critics you hear complaining about the critics? How dare critics not like something we didn’t think was good enough to show them! Don’t whine about no one respecting that you tried to do something different, when up until three seconds ago, you seemed pretty embarrassed about it yourselves. And it’s not about having to kiss critics’ asses and bribe them by letting them in for free, it’s the palpable lack of pride in the product that comes with hiding your movie until the very last minute. Trying to hide it makes it already suspect. It makes it seem like you don’t care about it. And if you don’t care about your movie, you can bet no one else will.
Unless you’re Adam Sandler. For him it seems to work in reverse.
Top 10, via Indiewire:
1. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Paramount) NEW – Cinemascore: B; Metacritic score: 18
$19,000,000 in 3,372 theaters; PSA (per screen average):; Cumulative: $19,000,0002. Mama (Universal) Week 2 – Last weekend: #1
$12,900,000 (-55%) in 2,682 theaters (+35); PSA: $4,795; Cumulative: $48,600,0003. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein) Week 11 - Last weekend: #3
$10,000,000 (-7%) in 2,641 theaters (+118); PSA: $3,786; Cumulative: $69,465,0004. Zero Dark Thirty (Sony) Week 6 – Last weekend: #2
$9,800,000 (-38%) in 2,929 theaters (-17); PSA: $3,346; Cumulative: $69,904,0005. Parker (FilmDistrict) NEW – Cinemascore:; Metacritic score: 43
$7,000,000 in 2,224 theaters; PSA: $3,147; Cumulative: $7,000,0006. Movie 43 (Relativity) NEW – Cinemascore: D; Metacritic score: 18
$5,000,000 in 2,023 theaters; PSA: $2,472; Cumulative: $5,000,0007. Django Unchained (Weinstein) Week 5; Last weekend: #7
$5,005,000 (-35%) in 2,007 theaters (-509); PSA: $2,484; Cumulative: $146,295,0008. Gangster Squad (Warner Bros.) Week 3; Last weekend: #4
$4,200,000 (-51%) in 2,590 theaters (-513); PSA: $1,622; Cumulative: $39,647,0009. Broken City (20th Century-Fox); Week 2; Last weekend: #5
$4,000,000 (-51%) in 2,622 theaters (+2); PSA: $1,526; Cumulative: $15,270,00010. Les Miserables (Universal); Week 5; Last weekend: #8
$3,912,000 (-48%) in 2,201 theaters (-378); PSA: $1,777; Cumulative: $137,237,000
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“No one actually likes JLo” I actually thought that the marketers thought this as well, since you see like zero J-Lo in Parker ads.
The marketing that did have her was subtitled: tits.
I thought it would be big booty.
I don’t understand why anyone would put her in a film other than to derail it due to some bitter internal reasons.
So has ‘The Last Stand’ fallen out of the top 10 already? Ouch.
If they put Arnold Schwarzenegger and J-Lo together in a movie, it would literally make negative money at the box-office.
On the plus side this could see an end to his plans for Twins 2 and Terminator 5.
It fell out of the top 15. I expect to see it under On Demand free movies next.
“You always complain that Hollywood never gives you new stuff” is a statement I would agree with if Movie 43 was actually new stuff.
Yeah, shitty movies aren’t anything new.
Maybe he was talking about “Mama”?
He had me with the first tweet saying they were just trying something and then lost me with this.
Plus they helped make “The Three Stooges.”
I fucked up and saw Movie 43 yesterday. It’s not a movie. I love sketch comedy. It wasn’t sketch comedy. It was a bunch of self-important assholes thinking they were doing something “different” and funny, but instead just coming off as clueless.
Granted the Farrelly Brothers are correct in some aspects, but the people who they should be trying to please, experimental or not, is the audience, which obviously isn’t too keen on the movie either.
And a joint twitter account, really?
The related problem is that people are understandably gun shy about the Farrellys already. They should understand this after a string of shitty movies and actually try to put out a good comedy. This isn’t rocket science, when you’re in the hole already you have to work extra hard to get out of it.
Psst…Gretel, that’s not a phone.
Like you wouldn’t be all over a crossbow app.
So with almost $49 million in two weeks, can we expect to see Mama 2: Stepmom or Mama 2: Papa
Mama 2: Mamamama
You can expect to see at least 4 more sequels. I don’t know what it is, but I am certain there is a formula to calculate how many horror sequels are made per initial box office success.
As someone who actually saw it, (and liked it: genuinely creepy until the last 15 minutes ruin things) I would say the only way they could do sequels is renaming a completely different project. Like Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. So yes, expect a Mama 2: Papa
StepMama or GrandMama or GodMama and perhaps a “Gone With The Wind” crossover called Mammy
Mama 2: Mamamia
Mama of the Southern Wild
Mama 2: Thrown from the Train
Mama: The Final Nagging
Mama 3: Mama and Me
MOVIE 43 basically had 2 good skits while the rest were just poorly executed bad ones. there was a weak narrative connecting each story together and a couple commercial that were ok. they all had funny concepts to work from but then just puttered out with the exception of a couple. i was really disappointed and i still haven’t figured out how all of these stars agreed to be in it.
Did you ever see “Loose Shoes?” That was a pretty terrible film in 1980, it was a whole bunch of “trailers” and “sketches” mashed together in one long film, had a few celebrity cameos in it like Bill Murray. BUT as bad as it was the only redeeming thing was the final musical sketch “Tight Pussy, Loose Shoes, and a Warm Place to Shit!” no joke! [www.youtube.com]
I haven’t seen Movie 43, but the synopsis sounds an awful lot like Kentucky Fried Movie
I saw Movie 43 & can tell you that apart from putting Oscar-winning people in the close vicinity of testicles, there was nothing new about it. It wasn’t a total waste, there were a few laughs, but it was pretty awful.
Didn’t America learn from “Van Helsing” and that god awful “Brothers Grimm” movie that retelling fairy tales with dark lighting and FUCKING GUNS FOR NO REASON is no good? NO GOOD I SAY!!!
Hansel and Gloansy… WILL NOT BE DENIED!
January.
Hey Red Riding Hood called…and said that they didn’t have guns in their movie
…but sucked all the same!
Waiting patiently for a dark and gritty retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. That shit will be EPIC!
Goddammit Red Riding Hood… wrecking everything….
Dearth of options is right. But this should inspire future filmmakers: “Hey, this idea for a movie is not so good, and we can’t afford any real stars, and the budget is too low for what we want to accomplish, but it only has to be marginally better than the rest of the crap released in January!”
This is the same argument I used at Christmas. I ate twice as much as usual, and took a bunch of laxative, just so I could produce enough brand new shit for each of them, and all they did when they opened the boxes was complain.
Unless Movie 43 is completely different than the trailers, there is absolutely nothing new about being added to the comedy genre. In fact, I feel like I’ve already seen it.
Counterpoint: Gemma Arterton is nice to look at. She’s probably worth an 8 figure box office on her own.
Also, Your Highness was fucking brilliant. That it wasn’t a critical success is more a reflection on how useless critics are than anything else.
Counterpoint: Your Highness was the antithesis of funny.
Dude, seriously Your Highness was HORRIBLE and this is coming from somebody that liked Land of The Lost.
So which brother is Piratelady from the CotW?
You stupid fucking assholes. We had the chance to kill Jeremy Renner’s career and you all squandered it by seeing that movie.
all i can see when a hansel + gretel trailer pops up on the TV is ‘blade van helsing underworld’
not. gunna. do it.
Complaint from someone I know who speaks German: Hansel and Gretel are child nicknames, not real names… it’s like watching adults who still call themselves “Little Johnny Boy” and “Cute Little Gretchen.”
That’s totally disgusting. Typical of Germans to watch a film with “Cute Little Gretchen”.
There is something fundamentally tragic about being a self-serious critic who flaunts his advanced education in filmmaking and yet is only famous for having an idiot brother.
wow!
Anyone else notice the book in that critic’s stack labeled “One Hundred Sex Scenes”? Cole, you dog, you.
6. Movie 43 (Relativity) NEW – Cinemascore: D; Metacritic score: 18
$5,000,000 in 2,023 theaters; PSA: $2,472; Cumulative: $5,000,000
7. Django Unchained (Weinstein) Week 5; Last weekend: #7
$5,005,000 (-35%) in 2,007 theaters (-509); PSA: $2,484; Cumulative: $146,295,000
Someone mathed bad.
Which part? Charlie doesn’t math.
Django made $5000 more but is ranked below Movie 43
Ahh, yes, good point. Probably moot too, since the final numbers will change.
5,005,000 > 5,000,000
TFBuckFutter doesn’t Reply apparently.
Except in this instance.
Things haven’t been looking good for the Farrellys for a while now. Kingpin was a long time ago.
How is that silver linings playbook made 10m this week its 11th week, but still has only 69m. Was this its best week?