One of the best things about Star Wars — given that it’s set in a galaxy far, far away full of fabulous planets and fantastic species — is how many weird alien creatures sneak their way into these movies. The original trilogy gave us wampas, banthas, Ewoks, and tauntauns, on Geonosis we saw Anakin, Padme, and Obi-wan fight the reek, the nexu, and (my favorite), the acklay, and The Force Awakens gave us a very thirsty happabore. Earlier this week, Lucasfilm gave us a closer behind-the-scenes look at The Last Jedi and while a lot of the stuff in there was cool, the best part was the porgs.
Who would you rather fight, a million spider-sized ape or one ape-sized spider? It’s a question that’s been haunting my mind since, oh, about an hour ago when I started to look up the box office numbers for this past weekend. And while I might not be any closer to solving my riddle, I can at least say this: when it comes to week-old spiders versus brand new primates, the primates are destined to win. Here’s the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:
Did any new releases come out this weekend? I honestly can’t remember. Someone mentioned that there was a new Marvel movie in theaters - one featuring some sort of Spider-Person - but that can’t be right. I feel like I would’ve seen that, perhaps promoted on an unprecedented level for any superhero movie? Hmm. Well, anyways, here’s the weekend box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon:
Stars & Stripes is teaming up with Once Upon a Party so that kiddos can "come meet the Minions, take a picture and watch the premiere of Despicable Me 3!"
If you only look at the surface numbers, this was a pretty predictable week at the box office. Wonder Woman did well, The Mummy did not, and everything else shook out accordingly. That being said, there’s some pretty interesting narratives emerging in the how and why of this weekend’s box office report. Let’s take a look at the rankings as of Sunday afternoon and dive into some of the specifics:
From the earliest announcement of its premise, Disney/Pixar’s latest project Coco has sounded a little derivative on paper. The angle of “boy uses enchanted stringed instrument to contact family members from beyond the grave during fantastical journey” bore an unfortunate resemblance to last year’s outstanding Kubo and the Two Strings, and moreover, the recent animated film The Book of Life also imagined a vibrant hidden world behind the culture surrounding Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. But today brings the first real taste of Coco with an official trailer, and I am pleased to report that in practice, it sure looks like its own thing.