Nolte: Woke Hollywood Hit with Another Disastrous Box Office Weekend
Paramount Pictures
Americans have apparently had enough of bad, preachy left-wing movies because we’re nearly halfway through the year and things are about as dire at the box office as I’ve ever seen them.
Currently, the 2024 box office is down 22 percent compared to last year, and down an astonishing 42 percent compared to 2019—the last pre-pandemic year. We are now three full years out of the pandemic. The box office should have returned to normal. But it’s not, and we all know why: movies stink. The Woke Virus has destroyed modern-day entertainment. All the goodwill Hollywood enjoyed was squandered on preachy, dull, gay, grooming features, so we’re all staying home and looking for alternative ways to entertain ourselves.
The hope for this weekend was the pairing up of director John Krasinski and star Ryan Reynolds in a high-concept family movie about imaginary friends becoming real. The $110 million budgeted (not including marketing) If was supposed to open to at least $40 million. It topped out at $35 million. Overseas, it grossed a soft $20 million.
If will probably need to cross $350 million to break even. That’s unlikely, but not impossible. After a weak Friday launch, the box office improved some, which means there’s positive word of mouth.
After all the dangerous and evil family movies pumped out by the Disney Grooming Syndicate over the last few years, parents might be leery to expose their small children to any family movie sight unseen. If’s box office might have picked up after parents spread the word that there’s no gay sex or the kind of trans propaganda that leads to kids permanently mutilating themselves.
The weekend’s real loser was a biopic about late blues singer Amy Winehouse. Back to Black bombed out with a disastrous $2.9 million opening. Sometimes these jukebox musicals hit, sometimes they don’t. The problem with Back to Black was its subject. Winehouse was never a big star. She was obviously talented and self-destructive, but people go to these movies for the same reason they go to concerts: to hear the songs they love. How many people are all that familiar with the Winehouse catalog?
The weekend’s only winner was the first chapter of a prequel trilogy of slasher movies based on 2008’s The Strangers—a pretty good movie and a moderate hit.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 opened to $12.5 million, which isn’t much, but it cost just $8.5 million to produce. Parts two and three are already filmed and set to be released before the end of the year.
After two weekends, the new Planet of the Apes movie has just barely crossed the $100 million mark.
Godzilla x King: The New Empire still hasn’t crossed $200 million after eight weekends.
As always, there is plenty of content out there. Just not the kind of content Normal People like or trust.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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