‘Weapons' tops North American box office, ahead of ‘Freakier Friday' and ‘Fantastic Four'
'This is an outstanding opening for an original horror film,' analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said of the Warner Bros. movie starring Julia Garner Ozark and Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War).
Debuting in second place was Disney'sFreakier Friday starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, the much-anticipated sequel to the 2003 family film in which body-switching leads to amusing hijinks, at US$29 million, Exhibitor Relations said.
'This is an excellent opening. The estimated weekend figure is well above average for a comedy follow-up sequel, and it's also well above the first film's opening 22 years ago,' Gross said.
'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' Disney's debut of the rebooted Marvel Comics franchise, dropped to third place at US$15.5 million.
Its overall take in the United States and Canada stands at US$230.4 million.
Actor-of-the-moment Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Emmy-winner Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn star as the titular team of superheroes, who must save a retro-futuristic world from the evil Galactus.
Universal's family-friendly animation sequel The Bad Guys 2, about a squad of goofy animal criminals doing good in their rebranded lives, dropped to fourth, earning US$10.4 million.
Finishing out the top five was Paramount's reboot of Naked Gun, a slapstick comedy starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, son of the bumbling police lieutenant from the original 1980s movie and related television series Police Squad!
The film, which co-stars Pamela Anderson, pulled in US$8.4 million in its second weekend in theaters.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
Superman (US$7.8 million)
Jurassic World: Rebirth (US$4.7 million)
F1: The Movie (US$2.8 million)
Together (US$2.6 million)
Sketch (US$2.5 million) — AFP
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Malay Mail
21 hours ago
- Malay Mail
‘Weapons' tops North American box office, ahead of ‘Freakier Friday' and ‘Fantastic Four'
LOS ANGELES, Aug 11 — Weapons, a new horror film about the mysterious disappearance of a group of children from the same school class, opened atop the North American box office with US$42.5 million in ticket sales, industry estimates showed yesterday. 'This is an outstanding opening for an original horror film,' analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said of the Warner Bros. movie starring Julia Garner Ozark and Josh Brolin (Avengers: Infinity War). Debuting in second place was Disney'sFreakier Friday starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, the much-anticipated sequel to the 2003 family film in which body-switching leads to amusing hijinks, at US$29 million, Exhibitor Relations said. 'This is an excellent opening. The estimated weekend figure is well above average for a comedy follow-up sequel, and it's also well above the first film's opening 22 years ago,' Gross said. 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' Disney's debut of the rebooted Marvel Comics franchise, dropped to third place at US$15.5 million. Its overall take in the United States and Canada stands at US$230.4 million. Actor-of-the-moment Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Emmy-winner Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn star as the titular team of superheroes, who must save a retro-futuristic world from the evil Galactus. Universal's family-friendly animation sequel The Bad Guys 2, about a squad of goofy animal criminals doing good in their rebranded lives, dropped to fourth, earning US$10.4 million. Finishing out the top five was Paramount's reboot of Naked Gun, a slapstick comedy starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr, son of the bumbling police lieutenant from the original 1980s movie and related television series Police Squad! The film, which co-stars Pamela Anderson, pulled in US$8.4 million in its second weekend in theaters. Rounding out the top 10 were: Superman (US$7.8 million) Jurassic World: Rebirth (US$4.7 million) F1: The Movie (US$2.8 million) Together (US$2.6 million) Sketch (US$2.5 million) — AFP
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Weapons horror film tops North American box office with $42.5 million
LOS ANGELES: The chilling new horror film Weapons has claimed the top spot at the North American box office with an impressive $42.5 million opening weekend. Industry estimates released on Sunday revealed strong audience turnout for the Warner Bros production starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin. 'This is an outstanding opening for an original horror film,' said analyst David A. Gross from Franchise Entertainment Research. Disney's family comedy sequel Freakier Friday secured second place with $29 million in ticket sales during its debut weekend. The long-awaited follow-up to the 2003 body-swap comedy reunites Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis for more humorous antics. Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps slipped to third position, earning $15.5 million in its latest weekend. The superhero reboot has now accumulated $230.4 million across cinemas in the United States and Canada. Universal's animated sequel The Bad Guys 2 dropped to fourth place with $10.4 million in earnings. Paramount's Naked Gun reboot completed the top five, bringing in $8.4 million during its second weekend in theatres. The slapstick comedy features Liam Neeson as the son of the original film's bumbling detective character. Other notable performers included Superman with $7.8 million and Jurassic World: Rebirth at $4.7 million. Formula One drama F1: The Movie took eighth place with $2.8 million in ticket sales. Romantic comedy Together and thriller Sketch rounded out the top ten with $2.6 million and $2.5 million respectively. – AFP
Malay Mail
3 days ago
- Malay Mail
‘The Naked Gun' & ‘Happy Gilmore 2' – keeping the tradition of 80s/90s low-brow comedy alive in 2025
AUGUST 9 — The comedies I grew up watching – as a kid in the 1980s and as a teenager in the 1990s – can feel like they come from another planet when compared to what is being sold as comedies right now. There were no sacred cows back then, and people could make fun of anyone, even in the most tasteless and low-brow manner. Try doing that in this era of political correctness, woke and cancel culture, and I'm sure some internet outrage will be coming your way. I loved the movies by the ZAZ trio (which consisted of Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker) like Airplane, The Naked Gun and Top Secret, all of which can be clearly classified as low-brow or dumb comedies, but are no less funny for being so. The 90s saw the golden era of tasteless, provocative, low-brow comedies from the Farrelly brothers, who gave us gems like Dumb And Dumber, Kingpin and There's Something About Mary, and which also saw the rise of Adam Sandler as a comedy star with films like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. These are not films that most cinephiles would be proud to admit they loved, but I wouldn't have them any other way. If a movie is funny, then it is funny. It doesn't matter whether the jokes are high-brow or low-brow. All that matters is that you laugh yourself silly watching them. It's been a while since I last saw a good low-brow comedy, so it's quite a delight to find myself encountering two of these within the space of just a week, one in the comforts of home, courtesy of Netflix, and one in the great communal experience of the cinema. A YouTube screenshot of a scene from the Netflix official trailer of Happy Gilmore 2. Happy Gilmore 2 Sequels, especially those that are made for Netflix, can be a tricky proposition. Because there's no pressure to recoup the budget from ticket sales, filmmakers can sometimes take things for granted and make things on auto-pilot. I can definitely say the same for a lot of the previous Adam Sandler movies that were made for Netflix. Sometimes it even feels like making the movie was just an excuse for him to get his family and friends to holiday at a particular exotic or foreign location, which can even be felt in the slapdash and lazy writing and casual performances. But Happy Gilmore 2 is definitely not one of those movies. It's a movie that relies on a lot of the plot points (and even jokes) that made us fans of the first movie back then, because a much older Happy Gilmore here needs to start from the bottom again after a tragedy involving his wife and golf has resulted in him swearing never to play golf again. All that changes when he needs to come up with some serious money in order to realise his daughter's dreams of becoming a dancer and pay for her to study at the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet School. To do that, he needs to play golf again, and this is one of those feel-good comeback kid sports movies, but with plenty of toilet humour in between. I had a great time watching this, the jokes mostly land just fine, the dizzying number of cameos will really make you feel dizzy, but in a good way, and it's just such a fun, optimistic movie that I feel is something that we all need right now, especially considering the state of the world we're in now. The Naked Gun Considering how much I loved the nonsensical humour in the original The Naked Gun, it's quite scary to imagine how that would translate into a re-quel (a reboot cum sequel) in 2025, but the moment the movie opened with a bank heist in which the villain blasts open a safety deposit box to retrieve his target, an item labeled 'P.L.O.T. Device', I knew I was in safe comic hands. Director Akiva Schaffer (who previously did Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Stopping and plenty of The Lonely Island music videos) is quite simply the perfect candidate to revive this much beloved low-brow franchise, confidently handling the script's non-stop barrage of jokes, both verbally and visually, that it was such great fun laughing out loud in the cinema together with other people. Liam Neeson is perfect as Frank Drebin Jr. (in an inspired visual gag, almost everyone in the Police Squad here are descendants of characters from the original movie), bringing his tough guy persona from Taken to play things with such a poker face that one simply can't help but giggle (or howl with laughter) at the things that come out of his mouth like: 'Who's going to arrest me anyway? Cops? Cops don't arrest cops!' Watching Liam Neeson being dead serious and dead stupid at the same time throughout the movie, with able support from Pamela Anderson, is the main thing that will keep you glued to your seat, and will probably keep you coming back for more if this one becomes a hit, which will likely produce at least a sequel. A non-stop gag machine, not everything lands here, but there's so much being thrown at the audience that you might not even have time to think about a failed joke that you'd already be laughing at the next one. Simply wonderful.
