This weekend, the only smart move the U.S. movie-going audience could make to save the summer blockbuster's future was to vote with their wallets and NOT visit their local theatre. You guys were simply in a state of check in a game of chess. The only move you could make was a defensive one to save your queen. Paying (x) amount of bucks to see a brain dead, Joe Popcorn friendly, summer actioner revamp of a forgotten 80's t.v. show in
The A-Team, that amazingly had 11 WRITERS during it's scripting stage, would be suicide, and we would pay for it dearly in the years to come. Paying (x) amount of bucks to see a remake of a well remembered 80's culture classic that was birthed by an 11 year old who watched the original on DVD, and like we all did during our childhoods, went 'daddy, daddy... can I be the
Karate Kid??' - only this kid happened to have
Will Smith as his Dad and he paid for it to happen, would also be catastrophic. As I say, we could only win by you guys not going to the cinema this weekend. In the end, you guys only got it half-right and now we just have to make sure that Brad Pitt's children never, ever see
Jurassic Park and Tom Cruise's daughter avoids Jodie Foster in
Taxi Driver all her life... Execs at 20th Century Fox will be scrambling around their office's this morning, scratching their heads wondering exactly what it was that went wrong with
The A-Team, which embarrassingly given it's IN-YOUR-FACE-SUCKA! ad campaign, made just $26 million this weekend, about 1/3rd of what it was supposed to make. On a budget of at least $100 million (before expensive marketing), it's a pretty shocking opening, akin I guess to
G.I. Joe last year which suffered the same audience disinterest after an ambitious marketing spin.
Did Fox and everyone else over-estimate how big
The A-Team fanbase was, or did
Joe Carnahan totally not deliver the kind of movie that we wanted, or were expecting. Personally, I didn't think the movie looked fun enough to be tagged with
The A-Team title, and it's attempt at being larger than life came off as phony and ridiculous. In the end
, The A-Team finished second behind a much less known franchise from the 80's that cost so much less to revive.
The A-Team is a dead franchise on arrival. There just can't be a sequel on this kind of return.
It's the kind of movie that studio's like Fox can release three or four times a year (a lowest common denominator movie that appeals to the masses, doesn't take much effort just wads of cash to make it work, and usually they have high returns) and get away with it time and time again. Well they didn't this weekend, and it could have a long-reaching Butterfly Effect.
The surprise winner of the weekend was
The Karate Kid, starring Jaden Smith and produced by his father Will Smith - which featured no karate and was centered on a kid who looked like he might have trouble fighting off an ewok, and was directed by the guy who brought us
The Pink Panther 2 and
Agent Cody Banks. Still, besides having all that against it, the movie somehow made $56 million. That's a $16 million profit in just three days, so watch out for a sequel to be greenlit soon. Presumably it got the kid audience? 1 N The Karate Kid Sony $56,000,000 - 3,663 - $15,288 $56,000,000 $40 1 2 N The A-Team Fox $26,000,000 - 3,535 - $7,355 $26,000,000 $110 1 3 1 Shrek Forever After P/DW $15,800,000 -38.0% 3,868 -518 $4,085 $210,052,000 $165 4 4 2 Get Him to the Greek Uni. $10,100,000 -42.5% 2,702 +5 $3,738 $36,500,000 $40 2 5 3 Killers LGF $8,170,000 -48.4% 2,859 - $2,858 $30,670,000 $75 2 6 4 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time BV $6,600,000 -52.9% 3,108 -538 $2,124 $72,300,000 $200 3 7 6 Marmaduke Fox $6,000,000 -48.3% 3,213 - $1,867 $22,278,000 $50 2 8 5 Sex and the City 2 WB (NL) $5,525,000 -55.2% 2,750 -695 $2,009 $84,745,000 $100 3 9 7 Iron Man 2 Par. $4,550,000 -42.5% 2,305 -702 $1,974 $299,311,000 $200 6 10 8 Splice WB $2,860,000 -61.3% 2,450 - $1,167 $13,071,000 $30 2