Civil War is beating vampires, spies, and big gorillas in its second week at the box office
Alex Garland's guaranteed bummer is drawing in more eyes than new flicks Abigail and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Aux News Civil War
Alex Garland’s new “What if all Americans decided to kill each other, but in a sort of unlikely, apolitical way?” thriller Civil War might have been divisive with critics, but it’s continuing to be a lot less ambiguous when it comes to ticket sales. Per Deadline, the A24 flick, now in its second week in theaters, is expected to beat new films Abigail and The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare at the weekend box office.
Now, admittedly, it’s not beating them by a lot, at what’s expected to be a very sleepy weekend in theaters overall. But Garland’s movie, which stars Kirsten Dunst as a journalist traveling to Washington, D.C. to interview the President of an increasingly fractured U.S., is still set to bring in at least $11 million in domestic ticket sales. That puts it ahead of Abigail, the new vampire horror movie from Scream team Radio Silence, which will bring in roughly $10 million. (It actually did a bit better than Civil War on Friday, at $4 million versus $3.25 million, but is expected to fall off a bit harder as the weekend progresses.) And both movies will do better than Guy Ritchie’s new Ungentlemanly, which will likely open at No. 4 (at $8.7 million), falling behind Godzilla x Kong, which is now into its fourth week in theaters.
Garland’s movie has been defying expectations since it released last week, as audiences seem a bit more inclined than projected to settle in for what is, honestly, a pretty serious bummer of a movie. (Abigail, about a crew of kidnappers who find out they’ve bitten off more than they can handle when they snatch a young ballerina, is similarly on the grim side, albeit with a lot more comedy than Garland’s cavalcade of atrocities.) So, yeah, good news for the national bad mood, less good for breezy World War II spy adventures.
28 Comments
I saw this yesterday and I must say… for all the people who are suuuper butt-hurt over the texas/california alliance it’s legitimately one line in the film and it never becomes relevant whatsoever nor do we learn anything about their allegiance. With the way people were talking about it I expected it to have more bearing on the film then one line of exposition in the opening scene.
It really had no bearing on how I felt about the movie (didn’t love, because of how it treated certain character beats in the climax; performances were almost all great though)
The ending, while maintaining the excellent sense of tension the rest of the film has, is so cloyingly generic. I spent the last ten minutes sincerely hoping that Garland would be smart enough to not do the incredibly obvious thing he was clearly ramping up to.
Yeah I liked the movie but the ending was way too predictable. And *spoilers* Kirsten Dunst dying because of a dumb move by the other photographer felt cheap. I get it, the young’in is so enthusiastic and slowly being desensitized so they’re willing to make dumb choices to get the perfect photo, but running out in the hallway at that moment made little sense
Why were people butt hurt about it? Was it a case of “Why would we ally with THEM!!” silliness
Butthurt = people mentioning thing presented by movie. Even then, the conver-no-tion seems to be inevitably “Texas and California? Wahoogly-woo?!?!?!?” and nothing further since there’s nothing to discuss. It’s just the movie’s Intended Audience going on about how so incredibly controversial the movie is and everyone’s so emotional about everything these days, etc.
It’s almost like they’re emotional about how everyone is emotional these days…
Yes, yes it was. The “civil war” in this movie is just a set piece.
for all the people who are suuuper butt-hurt over the texas/california alliance it’s legitimately one line in the film and it never becomes relevant whatsoever nor do we learn anything about their allegiance.That’s one of the criticisms.
I get that it’s a criticism, as when anything is a movie is too ambiguous it’s going to cause problems. Such as my issues Under the Skin. What a hunk of garbage, but I digress. I think it’s unwarranted in this instance because the “civil war” in Civil War isn’t the main focus of the movie, it’s just a jumping off point.
I get that, and maybe over time we’ll look back and laugh about what a big deal people on the internet made about it. But on the other hand, if it’s really such an unimportant part of the movie, I’m a little confused why Garland didn’t just use an even more generic faction name like “the Western Federation” or whatever. I completely understand that he thought if Texas and California were allied, then people wouldn’t be able to make assumptions about the political affiliation of each side. I think a generic name would have conveyed this as well without inviting scrutiny before people got a chance to see the movie.Then again, it’s entirely possible A24 or even Garland wanted scrutiny and online discussion to get people talking about the movie.
A pretty dumb criticism. Backstory on the history of the conflict would not make the movie better. Its just something hack bloggers are plagiarizing from each other because they dont like that its not explicitly blaming real world conservative politics for the imaginary Civil War.The idea that so many “critics” (who are really just generalist aggregators) think leaving something for the viewer to imagine is a bad thing is yet another reminder how quickly the digital media industry is degrading.
Its like criticizing Pulp Fiction for not including a 10 minute scene where they explain the history of Marcellus’s criminal enterprise whats in the case, and why it’s important for him.
Username isn’t checking out, sorry
I was pretty disappointed to be only one of 6 people in the theater last night for Abigail. It was fun as hell and deserves more attention. I guess you never really know what will be successful these days. I know it’s early, but it’s not off to a great start. I finally got the time to see Monkey Man today, and that was great! Although I’m wondering if there are different cuts of the film in theaters. In 3 different towns where I looked it up, it had drastically different reported lengths. One was 2 hours and 22 minutes, one was 1 hour and 55 minutes, and another was 2 hours and 7 minutes.
I wish the entire industry would standardize on “running time” being from the first frame to the last, including any company logos/credits up front (as well as any pre-movie shorts, rare though they are) as well as the entire end credits and any post-credit scene(s).
I always assumed that was already the case. . . .
Given Bam’s comment, it does not appear to be the case.
Abigail looks fun and looks like it would be a fun watch in theaters but it also looks like a movie that will be out for streaming within a month so that probably hurts it.
Abigail was only narrowly beaten by Civil War at the box office and, with a production of around $30 million, it was on the cheaper end for a film put out by a major Hollywood studio. It’s already made about half of its budget back, so I think it will do fine in the long run.
Just got back from Godzilla x Kong. If you’re in the mood for generic CGI blockbuster garbage, then have I got the movie for you!
“Less comedy?” You’re telling me you didn’t laugh out loud when (19th sad, horrible thing) happened in “Civil War?”
I saw it with a buddy and after the movie he pointed out that I laughed at a few lines and he chalked it up to me being former military.
I don’t think a story where a leader stays in power past their term limits, essentially turning a democracy into an authoritarian state, can be called apolitical.
I think you’d be right if one side in real life was calling for abolition of term limits.
I don’t think they call for it, they just do it.
It’s inherently political. It just doesn’t fit neatly into the current political discussion. Garland is liberal but he is more concerned with the state of the country as a whole as opposed to championing a particular political party or criticizing a candidate who hopefully will fade out of the public consciousness after November. I said “hopefully”.
We saw Wicked Little Letters yesterday and it was nearly perfect. A running time of 1 hour 40 minutes – great. A seeminlgy simple story with so, so many layers – and a very relevant film, though set in 1920. It’s the feminist film that Poor Things wasn’t, although I realize that each film had different ways of exploring that subject.
It’s certified fresh on RottenTomatoes so I am not sure how actually “divisive” it is with critics.