Tom Hanks Drama Bombs at the Weekend Box Office
by EG
The Tom Hanks drama Here debuted over the weekend to disappointing ticket sales. The movie reunites Hanks with Forrest Gump co-star Robin Wright and director Robert Zemeckis, but nostalgia failed to generate much interest in the movie, nor did the digital de-aging of Hanks and Wright for flashback scenes. Meanwhile, last week's top movie, Venom: The Last Dance, which itself had a disappointing debut, managed to stay on top of the box-office chart. Read on for details.
Via Variety.
“Venom: The Last Dance” topped the box office again as newcomer “Here,” a fantasy drama that uses AI so Tom Hanks and Robin Wright can play younger (and older) versions of themselves, fizzled in its debut.
“Here,” which was produced and financed by Miramax and distributed by Sony, opened in fifth place with $5 million from 2,647 North American theaters. The film, which reunites the “Forrest Gump” co-stars with their director Robert Zemeckis, follows the inhabitants of a single house over the course of 100 years — allowing Hanks and Wright to portray teenagers and octogenarians across 105 minutes thanks to de-aging technology. Critics and audiences rejected the movie with a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes and “B-” grade on CinemaScore. So, word-of-mouth may not help bolster attention for “Here” in its box office run. The movie cost $45 million and needs a long life in theaters to justify that price tag.
Hanks has been a massive big screen draw over the years, but times and moviegoing habits have changed dramatically since “Forrest Gump,” “Saving Private Ryan” and “You’ve Got Mail” dominated the box office. More recently, Sony sold the Hanks-led war film “Greyhound” to Apple TV+ during COVID while his Western “News of the World” grossed $12 million in total when many theaters were still closed due to the pandemic. Yet the actor’s latest starring role in 2022’s heartfelt drama “A Man Called Otto” defied expectations for an adult-skewing movie in the post-pandemic era with $113 million worldwide.
“This is a weak opening for an original drama,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “To work, this kind of story needs to connect emotionally and powerfully. In this case, the audience isn’t moved on that level and there isn’t enough to recommend.”
“Venom: The Last Dance,” the third and final chapter in Sony’s Marvel antihero trilogy, added $26.1 million from 4,131 venues in its second weekend of release. Those ticket sales are down 49% from its $51 million debut, a decent hold for movies of the superhero ilk. However, “Venom 3” had a much softer start than its predecessors, 2018’s “Venom” and 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”
Get the rest of the story at Variety.