Posted on 03/11/2018 8:09:29 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time — based on Madeleine L'Engle's beloved book and targeting younger girls — is off to a troubled start at the North American box office.
Hobbled by poor word of mouth, the fantasy-adventure grossed $10.2 million on Friday from 3,980 theaters for a weekend debut of $32 million-$33 million, behind expectations. Wrinkle in Time has been rebuffed by most critics, while audiences gave it a mediocre B CinemaScore.
While Wrinkle in Time was able to narrowly beat fellow Disney title Black Panther on Friday, Black Panther will easily win the weekend with $40 million-plus from 3942 locations, one of the best showings of all time for a movie in its fourth outing. (Black Panther grossed $10 million on Friday.)
In another major milestone, the history-making Disney/Marvel superhero film bounded past the $1 billion mark at the global box office on Satuday after landing in its final foreign market, China. Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler, is off to a rousing start in the Middle Kingdom, where it boasted an estimated opening-day gross of $22.7 million and another $27 million on Saturday. That's the third or fourth best start for a Marvel superhero pic behind Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Both Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time have been heralded for their diversity, both in front of and behind the camera.
DuVernay is the first black woman to helm a $100 million movie, while Storm Reid plays the heroine at the heart of the story, 13-year-old Meg Murry, who must find her father and save the universe along the way. The star-packed cast also includes Oprah Winfrey, Levi Miller, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Chris Pine.
A Wrinkle in Time currently has 42 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Three additional movies open nationwide this weekend. Aviron's The Strangers: Prey at Night, a sequel of sorts to The Strangers (2008), is showing the most strength, attracting more than $4 million on Friday from 2,464 theaters for a projected $10 million weekend, good enough for a third-place finish. (The film took in $610,000 in its Thursday night previews.)
The other two new wide arrivals — Amazon Studios and STXfilms' Gringo, a dark comedy starring David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron and Joel Edgerton, and Entertainment Studios' The Hurricane Heist, directed by Rob Cohen — are already fading fast.
Gringo is expected to place No. 10 with roughly $3 million from 2,404 cinemas, followed by Hurricane Heist with a projected $2.5 million-$3 million from 2,402 locations.
“Of course, the movie took all the parts out of it that made it beloved, including the Christian themes...”
As is word has spread and Christians who have swamped the box office for other films will stay home. I skipped “Exodus: Gods and Kings”, “Noah”, and “Ben Hur”, because word spread about how each went far afield of the original sources and the Bible. I’ve seen excerpts since then that confirm my decisions.
Oprah is unelectable because she acted as a pimp for Harvey Weinstein.
Oh, and she a beaver-munching lesbo, too - that seals the deal.
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