The first movie in your horny aunt’s favorite trilogy, Fifty Shades of Grey, earned $85 million at the box office during its opening weekend — that’s more than any film released in February during its first three days ever (the previous record-holder, The Passion of the Christ, made $83.8 million). At the time of the movie’s release, Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at the audience measurement service Rentrak, told Forbes that between the built-in audience of people who read E.L. James’ books and curiosity-seekers in need of a seductive thrill, Fifty Shades “could be the R-rated equivalent of Twilight.” (And not just because Fifty Shades started as Twilight fan fiction.)
Yeah, about that. Here are the box office numbers for the Twilight movies:
Twilight: $393.6 million
New Moon: $709.7 million
Eclipse: $698.4 million
Breaking Dawn – Part 1: $712.2 million
Breaking Dawn – Part 2: $829.7 million
With the exception of Eclipse, every movie in the series made more than the one before it. That’s par for the course for major film franchises. Meanwhile, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, “will open in the $35 million-$40 million range over the Feb. 10-12 weekend.” That’s barely more than Fifty Shades of Grey made during weekend two. What gives? There are three factors at play here:
1. Fifty Shades of Grey was released the day before Valentine’s Day — Fifty Shades Darker opens on the less romantically-inclined February 10, the same day as John Wick: Chapter 2 and The Lego Batman Movie. Those three films have very different audiences, but parents might choose to see a fun Batman movie with the kids instead of Jamie Dornan’s wooden acting on date night.
2. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey during its opening weekend because I wanted to know what the hoopla was all about. I left the theater disappointed. It wasn’t good enough to be “sexy,” or bad enough to be fun. It was somewhere in the boring middle, which is the worst place a movie with straight-faced dialogue like “I don’t make love. I f*ck… hard” can be. Fifty Shades Darker also looks competently dull, despite the elevator sex scene (and Taylor Swift/Zayn duet), and I’m not as interested this time. If there are others like me (even Dakota Johnson is “over it”), that will put a dent in the movie’s box office numbers.
3. Miguel is great, but he’s no Beyoncé.
Maybe she’ll be back for Fifty Shades Freed.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
