'Better Man' Fails at Weekend Box Office
by EG
It was slow and unusual weekend in theaters this weekend. The week's top movie turned out to be Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, a sequel to a relatively little known action movie. The week also featured a flop in the form of a musical bio pic that, despite being about a real human musician, is fronted, for some reason, by a CGI-generated singing chimpanzee. Read on for details.
Via Variety.
Lionsgate’s heist thriller “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” stole the box office crown, debuting at No. 1 with $15.5 million from 3,008 North American theaters.
The sequel to 2018’s “Den of Thieves” opened on the higher end of expectations and landed about even with its predecessor’s $15.2 million launch. The first film also opened in January and powered to $80 million globally by the end of its theatrical run. The second installment needs an even better display of staying power because it carries a $40 million production budget. Moviegoers liked the film more than critics; “Den of Thieves 2” earned a “B+” grade on CinemaScore and a 58% average on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Gerard Butler stars as Big Nick, a gritty Los Angeles police officer on the hunt in Europe to track down ex-marine-turned-robber Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who is plotting a massive diamond heist.
“These movies are made for audiences, not critics,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Gerard Butler is an established action star, and this kind of good-guys-versus-bad-guys material plays well around the world. Foreign business should be solid.”
Though Lionsgate usually mitigates risk by selling foreign rights to its theatrical titles, the company hopes “Den of Thieves 2” signals a rebound in big screen fortunes. In 2024, the studio suffered an unprecedented losing streak of seven consecutive flops as moviegoers rejected offerings like the “Borderlands” video game adaptation, “The Crow” reboot, Halle Berry’s thriller “Never Let Go” and others. Lionsgate’s 2025 slate looks stronger with commercial options such as “John Wick” spinoff “Ballerina,” “Saw XI” and the Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” on the calendar.
Another newcomer, Paramount’s musical biopic “Better Man,” in which a CGI monkey portrays the British singer Robbie Williams, hit all the wrong notes with a paltry $1 million from 1,291 venues, albeit a smaller screen count than the average nationwide release. The film, directed by “The Greatest Showman’s” Michael Gracey, captures the rise of the best-selling local artist through the lens of a chimp because, as Williams puts it, he always felt “less evolved than other people.” Even across the pond, where Williams is more well known than he is in the States, “Better Man” faltered with $1.9 million to start and $4.7 million to date. Those ticket sales aren’t a good sign for commercial prospects, although “Better Man” has been well reviewed.
Get the rest of the story at Variety.