Edge Of Tomorrow Disappoints Domestically But Thrives Internationally
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By their very nature, summer tentpoles are films that generally gain nothing from word of mouth, because their marketing campaigns usually do all the talking. That hasn’t worked so well for Warner Bros.’ Edge of Tomorrow, which released this past weekend and drove another nail into the coffin of Tom Cruise’s Superstardom. The $175 million darkly comedic battle-heavy actioner only brought in $29.1 million here in the U.S. Where the hell was everybody?
It would be a low-but-feasible total if this were a particularly slow week for cinemas and Edge of Tomorrow could fall back on taking the number-one spot. Unfortunately, it fell down to that other movie with death at its center, Josh Boone’s teen romance The Fault in Our Stars, which sat atop the box office with over $48 million. But the big insult here is that Robert Stromberg’s darkened Disney fairy tale Maleficent took second place with $33 million, despite this being its second week of release. I already knew that I lived in a world where people are more interested in Angelina Jolie’s cheekbones than Cruise fighting aliens, but it still sucks to see it laid out so plainly at Box Office Mojo.
Considering most films see something around a 50% drop in earnings between its first and second weeks, this is the best time to tell your friends and everyone you know just how fricking good Edge of Tomorrow really is, and let’s buck that percentage trend. This is one of those flicks that is the epitome of the theatrical experience with huge sequences, huge action, and huge unexpected laughs. Saving this for your living room is not only lazy, it’s…some word I don’t feel like thinking up. Check out this TV spot in the meantime.
There is a silver lining here, though, and it’s called “the rest of the world.” Cruise’s draw as a star is alive and well around the globe, and Edge of Tomorrow has been doing pretty solidly overseas, bringing in over $111 million. Many countries saw its release last week, which helps those numbers, and results from countries such as China are as yet unreleased. Plus, Edge of Tomorrow doesn’t get release until July 4 in Japan, where its source material originated. (It’s loosely based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 novel All You Need Is Kill.) So there’s a good chance, when all is said and done in a month or so, Edge of Tomorrow may be what some people refer to as a “profitable movie.”
We’re hoping that when we wake up tomorrow, the world resets to last week, and we can really start pushing people to go see it in theaters. We’ll team up with Emily Blunt if need be. We swear.
