As someone who has been following the ebbs and flows of the movie industry for decades, I must say that the box office performance of “Kraven the Hunter” left me with a sense of deja vu. Sony seems to be struggling to find its footing when it comes to Spider-Man’s tertiary villains, much like a cat trying to pounce on a slippery fish. The film’s lackluster reception is a stark reminder that even the world’s greatest hunter can’t always bag the biggest prey.
Kraven, renowned as the world’s best hunter in comics, failed to scale the heights of the box office rankings.
As a follower, I found myself witnessing the release of Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter,” starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Spider-Man’s infamous adversary. Initially, the anticipation was not high, and it debuted at position 3 with earnings of $11 million from a total of 3,211 theaters. Regrettably, this opening fell short even compared to February’s flop “Madame Web” ($15.3 million), and also received abysmal reviews from both critics and audiences. With an alarmingly low rating of 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and a “C” grade on CinemaScore, it seems that this film is unlikely to experience a turnaround in the remaining days of December, unless there’s a miraculous change over the holiday season.
Kraven the Hunter” is Sony’s third film this year connected to Spider-Man, following October’s release of “Venom: The Last Dance.” The Venom trilogy, starring Tom Hardy, has shown resistance to criticism and commercial success, though the last movie didn’t meet the box office expectations set by its predecessors. So far, Sony hasn’t managed to create a successful comic book adaptation from spin-offs featuring supporting Spider-Man villains. In 2022, they also struggled with “Morbius,” a thriller inspired by vampires and starring Jared Leto as the bloodthirsty antagonist – another one of Peter Parker’s well-known enemies.
The highly anticipated “Kraven” movie ended up costing over $110 million to produce, a significant increase from its original budget of $90 million due to last year’s writers and actors strikes. However, it was jointly financed by TSG. This R-rated film, directed by J.C. Chandor, delves into the backstory of Sergei Kravinoff, the comic book character’s persona, focusing on his tumultuous relationship with his criminal father, played by Russell Crowe, and his ambition to be the world’s greatest hunter.
According to David A. Gross, who heads Franchise Entertainment Research, over the past five years, the superhero genre has been on a downward trend. However, films like ‘Morbius,’ ‘Madame Web,’ and notably ‘Kraven’ are currently setting records for poor performance. Despite market realities causing a reduction in ‘Kraven’s budget, it remains too expensive given its current outcome.
This weekend, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” a Warner Bros. anime fantasy film based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters, earned $5.4 million in its opening weekend across 2,602 theaters, placing it fifth. With a budget of only $30 million, any losses during its theatrical run won’t significantly impact the studio financially. Additionally, financial success wasn’t the primary motivation for producing “The War of the Rohirrim.” Instead, the film was developed quickly to prevent New Line Cinema from losing the rights to adapt Tolkien’s novels while Peter Jackson and his teams were working on new live-action films scheduled for 2026. The first of these movies, titled “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” will be directed by and star Andy Serkis.
The “War of the Rohirrim,” receiving moderate responses and a mediocre grade of ‘B’ on CinemaScore, struggled during its opening weekend at the international box office, earning only $2 million from 31 different territories. Over the upcoming weekend, it will be released in an additional 42 foreign markets.
Despite two fresh releases, Disney’s “Moana 2” continued its reign at the top of domestic box office rankings for a third straight weekend, earning $26.6 million from 4,000 screens. Initially intended for streaming, this Polynesian-themed adventure has proven to be a massive hit in cinemas, raking in $337.5 million in North America and over $717 million worldwide. Currently, it ranks as the fifth highest-grossing movie domestically and fourth largest global release of the year.
In its fourth week of release, Universal’s adaptation of “Wicked” outperformed Sony’s “Kraven” by nearly doubling the latter’s earnings, despite the fact that “Wicked” had been playing in cinemas for a month prior. “Wicked” maintained its position as the second highest-grossing film, earning an impressive $22.5 million from 3,689 theaters. Starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked” has amassed a total of $359 million in the U.S. and over $457 million globally. Currently, it holds the record for the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation in domestic box office history, surpassing 1978’s “Grease” ($188.62 million), and ranks as the second largest stage-to-screen transformation after 2008’s “Mamma Mia” ($611 million).
In its fourth week, “Gladiator II” from Paramount secured the third position with a box office take of $7.8 million. This long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Academy Award-winning film “Gladiator,” which took nearly a quarter century to materialize, has grossed over $145.9 million in North America and surpassed $368.4 million worldwide.
As we approach the popular holiday season, overall box office earnings are currently 5.3% lower than 2023 and a significant 23.4% below 2019’s figures, as reported by Comscore. The movies “Moana 2” and the combined release of two films, affectionately named “Glicked” (a blend of their twin titles and spiritual successor to “Barbenheimer”), are expected to maintain their dominance in cinemas until Christmas. During this period, Disney’s “The Lion King” prequel “Mufasa”, Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”, and A24’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” will all hit theaters on December 20th. In the following days, Focus Features’ remake of “Nosferatu” and Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic titled “A Complete Unknown”, featuring Timothee Chalamet, are scheduled to premiere on Christmas Day to wrap up the year.
Until then, it’ll be all Moana, Glinda and Elphaba all the time.
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2024-12-15 18:46