Box office preview: ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ hopes to boost May after weak start
The summer movie season continues with its first direct franchise installment, hoping to revive things after a softer month. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.
Undaunted by the disappointing showing for Universal’s “The Fall Guy” this past weekend, Disney and 20th Century are releasing “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” the next installment of the popular franchise that began way back in 1968 with the sci-fi classic starring Charlton Heston, into over 3,900 theaters this Friday. This installment takes place hundreds of the years into the future, when the apes have fully taken over from humans, following a young ape named Noah (Owen Teague from “Bloodline”) who goes on a journey to rescue his people from a more dominant ape clan.
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There isn’t much point getting into the box office of any of the installments from the ’60s and ’70s, since those were differing times and none of those sequels surpassed the $33 million made by the original movie. The biggest revival of the franchise was when Tim Burton directed the 2001 remake, starring Mark Wahlberg, which wasn’t received well, but is still the second-biggest of the entire franchise, which remained a summer mainstay through the 2011s. (Data below provided by The Numbers.)
“Planet of the Apes” — 7/27/2001
Opening: $68.5 million
Domestic Total: $180 million
Global Total: $362.2 million
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” — 8/5/2011
Opening: $54.8 million
Domestic Total: $176.8 million
Global Total: $471 million
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” — 7/11/2014
Opening: $72.6 million
Domestic Total: $208.5 million
Global Total: $710.6 million
“War for the Planet of the Apes” — 7/14/2017
Opening: $56.3 million
Domestic Total: $146.9 million
Global Total: $489.6 million
The last two of those movies were directed by Matt Reeves, who went on to similar success with 2022’s “The Batman,” but the latest iteration is directed by Wes Ball of the “Maze Runner” trilogy, which ran from 2014 to 2018, also released by Fox. Worldwide, those three movies made $924 million combined, generally doing worse with each chapter, yet it was just announced that 20th Century is trying to revive that franchise. As you can see, $54.8 million is the low-end opening, while 2014’s “Dawn” opened the biggest with $72.6 million.
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” diverges from the other movies in some ways, since there are fewer actors like James Franco or Woody Harrelson playing key human roles, other than Freya Allan as Noa’s human travel companion, Mae, and another small role played by William H. Macy. Instead, it stars the likes of Teague, Kevin Durand (“Abigail”) and Peter Macon (“Shameless”) doing performance capture in ape roles, similar to what Andy Serkis did in the previous trilogy.
Reviews for “Kingdom” will hit Rotten Tomatoes sometime Wednesday, and based on early reactions, they should be fairly good. One thing that “Kingdom” has going for it is that it seems to have generated more interest among kids with the ever-present trailer that’s been playing in front of other movies for months, and that should help push its opening over the $50 million mark for an easy #1 opening.
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Because of the new “Apes” movie, the Ryan Gosling–Emily Blunt action-comedy “The Fall Guy” will fall to second place, but may be able to bring in some repeat and word-of-mouth business in its second weekend.
Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke star in the spoof comedy, “Not Another Church Movie,” which will be released by Briarcliff into roughly 1,100 theaters this Friday. It essentially is making fun of Tyler Perry‘s oeuvre of films, of which there haven’t been many in theaters in recent years, though at least his Madea movies tended to do well. It’s been some time since there was a wide release geared towards African-American audiences, so this could possibly break into the top five with less than $3 million.
Chris Pine makes his directorial debut with “Poolman,” in which he plays Angeleno Darren Barrenman, who looks after the pool at his Tahitian Tiki apartments. The cast also includes Jennifer Jason Leigh, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito and more.
Eric Bana stars in the Australian crime-thriller sequel “Force of Nature: The Dry 2,” once again playing federal agent Aaron Falk, who is investigating the disappearance of an informant along with Jacqueline McKenzie‘s Agent Carmen Cooper.
Check back on Sunday to see how “Apes” and the other movies do.
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