I’ve always said Magic Mike is a dude movie disguised as a chick movie, but that wasn’t true of the sequel. Which, according to audience exit polls, played a mind-boggling 96% female. Only four out of 100 audience members were men. Which suggests that at the very least, Magic Mike XXL was betrayed by the gay community.
Magic Mike XXL earned $12 million for the weekend, and $27.1 million from Wednesday through Sunday, well down from Magic Mike‘s $39 million opening weekend in 2012. The sequel debuted all the way down in fourth place, but its five-day total of $27.1 million was still almost double MMXXL‘s $14 million budget, so no one’s crying too hard about that. Which is good, if they start depress-binging on ice cream, they’ll never have the abs to make Magic Mike 3===> ~ ~ ~
Conversely, Terminator Genisys cost $155 million to make, got terrible reviews (rightly so), and just couldn’t compete with Jurassic World or Inside Out. It earned $28.7 million domestic for the weekend, $44.1 for the five-day, which Forbes called “a (domestic) disaster.”
Terminator Genisys made just a little more in five days than Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ($44m) and Terminator Salvation ($42m) made in its Fri-Sun frame. It ended its first five days well below the $66m Thurs-Sun Memorial Day launch of Terminator: Salvation back in 2009. […] Terminator Genisys should end its US run with around $80m-$100m.
Overseas, Genisys earned $85.5 million for a $129.6 million total, having opened in about half of its scheduled international markets. So overseas box office saves a bomb again, right? …Eh, sort of.
That’s solid, but there has never been an American film that topped $400m worldwide without also topping $100m in America. [Forbes]
At least this way, critics don’t have to be the only ones disappointed.
This weekend’s top spot, meanwhile, went once again to Jurassic World, in almost a dead heat with Inside Out, both at around $30 million. Both fell about 40% from last week (by contrast, Ted 2 was down 67% from its opening weekend). That pushed Jurassic World‘s total domestic gross ($558.2 million) past The Dark Knight ($534.9 million) for number four all time, not adjusted for inflation. Adjusted for inflation, Jurassic World is 38, behind Independence Day.
Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys are an interesting comparison, because in a lot of ways, they’re the same movie. Both long-gestating sequels that trade on early 90s nostalgia and try to forget the previous crappy sequels, both attempts to revive a franchise, that start out strong enough and then get convoluted and bogged down in unnecessary storylines with unsatisfying endings.
I happen to think Jurassic World is a little better, but certainly not enough to account for the vast gulf between them, money-wise. The difference, sad to say, seems to have been marketing. The first look the world got at Terminator was a photo set in Entertainment Weekly that was so bad people thought it was a joke, and the trailers didn’t get much better from there. Jurassic World at least looked… shiny. But in fairness to the trailer editors, where as Jurassic World had Chris Pratt to sell, Terminator Genisys had Jai Courtney. Game, set, match.
This weekend brings us The Gallows, Minions, and Self/Less, making it a perfect time to watch Mad Max again.