
This weekend sees not only the return of the Box Office Predictions feature to The Gossip Life, but also animation to dominance. We’ll see two animated movies battling it out for the top spot with decent competition elsewhere. Let’s get down to it.
The Secret Life of Pets
Synopsis: A cute story revolving around a set of anthropomorphic, talking animals that answers the question no one has ever actually asked: ‘What do pets do all day?’
Budget: $75 M
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Current Box Office: $30.9 M
Domestic Box Office: $0 M
Previous Weekend Box Office: $0 M
Box Office Prediction: $80 M
Comments: The Secret Life of Pets debuts this weekend and should knock Finding Dory off the top spot. It’s already scored a highly respectable $30 million in the foreign market and has a fairly low budget for an animation flick with a starry cast. It stars Steve Coogan, Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart, and it’ll be the number one movie this weekend.
Finding Dory
Synopsis: A sequel that Ellen DeGeneres tried her hardest to make it happen that sees DeGeneres’ character Dory becoming lost instead of Nemo in the original.
Budget: $200 M
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Overall Box Office: $570.1 M
Domestic Box Office: $396.3 M
Previous Weekend Box Office: $51.4
Box Office Prediction: $20 M
Comments: Finding Dory has a decent run as the dominant movie of the recent month and although the highly anticipated sequel has failed to close to Finding Nemo’s almost billion dollar take back in 2003, the Ellen DeGeneres-led picture should finish with a fair take this weekend –$20 million.
The Legend of Tarzan
Synopsis: Yet another unnecessary retelling of the overdone Tarzan story, which sees Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz cashing a paycheck, and Alexander Skarsgård adopting the loincloth to prove his worth as a leading actor.
Budget: $180 M
Rotten Tomatoes: 35%
Overall Box Office: $76.2M
Domestic Box Office: $56.8 M
Previous Weekend Box Office: $46.5 M
Box Office Prediction: $16 M
Comments: Our biggest flop of the Summer and the subject of a blind item that we will soon reveal, The Legend of Tarzan has only grossed $76.2 million against a budget of more than double that. Unless they insert a live sex tape of Margot Robbie and Alexander Skarsgård half way into the SFX atrocity, this weekend will not be changing its dire fortunes — $16 million.
Others: Elsewhere Steven Spielberg’s worst nightmare The BFG continues to embarrass him with meagre takings across the nation. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and The Purge: Election Year should do creditable business with just over the $10 million mark each. Independence Day: Resurgence will somehow do even less than that and will force any sane person to ponder, ‘Why the fuck do they keep casting Liam Hemsworth in big budget movies?’
One for the philosophers.