Weekend Box Office 10/14 - Venom, Gaga Stay on Top

[AndyDursin]

VENOM and STAR IS BORN stay strong as FIRST MAN stumbles off the launching pad:

1 Venom Sony 4,250 $9.5M (-71%) $31.7M (-60%) $138.8M 2
2 A Star Is Born WB 3,708 (+22) $8.9M (-43%) $29.6M (-31%) $95.7M 2
3 First Man Uni 3,640 $5.9M $16.8M $16.8M 1
4 Goosebumps 2 Sony 3,521 $4.9M $15.7M $15.7M 1
5 Smallfoot WB 3,606 (-525) $2.1M (-38%) $8.8M (-39%) $57.1M 3

6 …El Royale Fox 2,808 $2.9M $7.9M $7.9M 1
7 Night School Uni 2,780 (-239) $2.1M (-41%) $7.5M (-40%) $59.3M 3
8 The House… Am/Uni 2,791 (-672) $1M (-43%) $4M (-45%) $62.3M 4
9 The Hate U Give Fox 248 (+212) $455K (+160%) $1.5M (+201%) $2.2M 2
10 A Simple Favor LG 1,452 (-956) $427K (-59%) $1.3M
(-61%) $52M

[Eric Paddon]

Moral of the story. Don't rewrite history just to satisfy your stupid present day political impulses (which clearly in Hollywood is crap all over American history and anything suggesting American achievement and pride).

[Johnmgm]

I took my daughter to see First Man and didn’t find it anti-American in the least. I also didn’t think it was an especially good movie either.

First Man is told from the VERY melancholy point of Neil Armstrong. In the early going Armstrong loses his baby daughter to cancer and according to the movie never “gets over it.” (I don’t blame him). As a result of this tragedy Armstrong turns inward to the degree that he alienates his family and those around him. But, it appears this alienation allows him to take a step back in chaotic and dangerous situation and keep a clear head.

Unfortunately, at least as presented in this film, Armstrong’s already stoic personality, combined with (IMO) clinical depression does not make for gripping cinema.

The space flight scenes are amazing, giving the audience (I assume) the feeling of flight—in and out of Earth’s atmosphere.

The anti-American criticism is centered on the omission of the flag “planting” scene. The flag is shown in long shot. But, the story as told is so personal and from such a melancholy POV, that I didn’t miss it and it probably worked better without it.

[AndyDursin]

I truly believe that whole flag thing, in hindsight, was to some degree meant to generate publicity for the movie, because obviously there was not a big audience out there for this movie. It wouldn't shock me even though it was "bad press" that Universal knew it was tracking badly and was fuel for conversation one way or another. Bad press is better than no press at all.

Either way between Gosling and the mopey subject matter (not to mention how much I disliked LALALAND from the same director) the film didn't get me enthused at all about paying to see it -- especially after John's post!