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Monday Mixer: We all won the 'Civil War'

Posted Monday, May 9, 2016 at 11:02 AM Central
Last updated Monday, May 9, 2016 at 11:06 AM Central

by John Couture

Let's take a little survey, shall we? How long before Disney owns all of the box office records? Between Marvel, Star Wars and the Pixar films, Disney has had quite a lucrative hold on the box office that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

Consider this. Disney currently has half of the slots in the top 10 highest openings of all time and seven through ten are all Warner Bros. films that are ripe for tumbling out of the top 10. Between its yearly arsenal of multiple Marvel films and a Star Wars film for the foreseeable future, it won't be long before Disney completely owns the box office.

While Disney is cornering the market in opening weekends, they haven't seen that success translate to the total box office chart... yet. They only own three of the top 10 spots, the same number of spots as Fox, but it should be noted that two of those films from Fox are Star Wars films.

So, are we destined to live in a world where the only film choices we have are comic book films, animates stories of mothers being killed or star battles in a galaxy far, far away? Is that a bad thing? Yes, for so many reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm the biggest Star Wars geek you will find, but even I appreciate a break every now and then. Perhaps we need to step back from the onslaught of comic book films and appreciate something different before it's too late.

Of course, Marvel thinks that things are just fine. And why wouldn't they?

Box Office 411

Usually, this is the place where we track the results of all the new films and pontificate as to their likelihood of success or failure. This week, there's only one new film to crack the top 15 and that one is, of course, Captain America: Civil War.

While we expected a pretty big jump from the last Captain America opening (The Winter Soldier, $95 million), I'm not sure anyone was really expecting almost twice as much. Sure, there were some outliers who thought that it would surpass $200 million, but this film felt like an Avengers film and it opened in line with those films.

The estimated box office gross of $181.8 million for Civil War is right up there with the original Avengers' $207 million opening and Age of Ultron's first-weekend take of $191 million. If these trends continue, and the lack of competition for the next three weeks seems to indicate they will, then it is entirely possible that Captain America: Civil War will finish in the same stratosphere as these two goliaths.

Of course, that's a big range, between $623 million and $459 million, but it's a pretty safe bet that Captain America: Civil War will top $400 million. I think a ceiling of around $450 million is possible and if word-of-mouth is strong, it might even eclipse Age of Ultron's $459 million total.

I know that we will know more next week at this time, but I will be relaxing on the beach exactly one week from today, so I'm pretty sure that we will have to skip next week's mixer. Don't worry, I can play Cooterdamus for you. Captain America: Civil War will end up with around $100 million for the weekend and its gross will be in the $330 million range.

For those playing along at home, those would be better numbers and holds than Age of Ultron, but I think the competition is weaker this year and I think there's still some significant business out there. I do think that Mother's Day eroded Captain America: Civil War's Sunday numbers.

Quick Hitters

  • Our friends over at FilmSchoolRejects always have fun and compelling stories. If you're not already checking them out on a regular basis, you really owe it to yourself to do so. I saw this story last week and it caught my eye. They argued for a Grand Unified Theory of Scarlett Johansson films.

    Anytime I can spend 5 minutes looking at ScarJo, I usually take it.

  • This one popped up on my radar out of nowhere this morning. There's a new film coming from Cinedigm this August called Amateur Night. The premise is so simple, that it's brilliant. Jason Biggs plays an out-of-work architect who takes a temp job as a pimp/driver for some working girls and quickly finds himself in over his head.

    This is a return of sorts to the role that Biggs played to perfection in the American Pie movies. He's the ultimate fish-out-of-water and the hijinks are sure to be hilarious. What do you think? The first trailer is below.

Well, that will do it for this week. Check back in two weeks when we will most likely be dissecting huge numbers from Captain America: Civil War.