Channing Tatum’s ‘Dog’ Nabs Terrific $18M Weekend

In non-Uncharted news, MGM’s Dog overperformed this weekend with a strong $15 million Fri-Sun/$18 million Fri-Mon debut. That’s a terrific performance for a $15 million character study, a non-franchise, star+concept studio programmer that has been every bit the endangered species since streaming snatched the “see a movie just to see a movie” crowd in early 2016. It’s also another strong performance from MGM, which is doing pretty well for the first time in, well, forever? They’ve done well, sometimes with Universal’s help overseas, by The Addams Family ($203 million worldwide), The Hustle ($95 million), Child’s Play ($45 million on a $10 million budget), Wrath of Man ($104 million), The Addams Family 2 ($119 million plus PVOD earnings), No Time to Die ($775 million), House of Gucci ($152 million), Licorice Pizza ($24 million) and now Dog.

You don’t spring for a Paul Thomas Anderson-directed $40 million, star-free, period piece coming-of-age dramedy to get rich. Licorice Pizza has still has pulled halfway decent Oscar season numbers (almost double the domestic grosses of alleged crowd-pleasing, mainstream front-runner Belfast even if they’ve both earned around $25 million global) and made a strong showing in the overall awards season. House of Gucci isn’t a smash on a $75 million budget, but it’s the closest thing to an adult-skewing, non-franchise, star-driven hit we’ve had since early 2020. This may be small potatoes, but for a studio that frankly I’ve rarely found reason to take seriously outside of James Bond and their attachment to a few franchises (Hobbit, Creed, etc.), I’m officially impressed. Dog also prevented Tom Holland from owning the top two spots at the domestic box office.

Reid Carolin & Channing Tatum’s Dog stars Tatum as an Army Ranger taking a military dog to his owner’s funeral. With a 73% from Rotten Tomatoes and an A- from Cinemascore, it played 73% over 25, 53% over 35 and 37% over 45, while playing 58% Caucasian, 22% Latino, 6% Black and 14% Asian or “other.” MGM spent the money advertising this FilmNation Entertainment release, including assuring audiences that the dog does *not* die at the end. This shows audiences would prefer to see Tatum as a lover (in this case, a platonic animal lover) rather than an action hero, but the film understandably played quite well outside of the stereotypical “big cities.” Pundits like to complain about the lack of Hollywood movies aimed at the heartland, so it’s nice that audiences showed up when they got one.

LD Entertainment dropped The Cursed into 1,687 theaters. Horror fans are simply happy that an original, period-piece werewolf movie exists in theaters nationwide. The film concerns a pathologist who visits a rural 19th century French town to investigate possibly supernatural murders, so Sleepy Hollow played straight. It will earn around $1.92 million Fri-Mon debut. Reviews and buzz are decent, and my wife and I are planning to do our part this evening (last night didn’t work out) at the local AMC or Regal. Meanwhile, China’s Too Cool to Kill opened domestically in 30 theaters. The remake of a 2008 Japanese action comedy earned around $98,000 over the Fri-Mon weekend. It’ll have to make do with its current $373 million cume in China (Battle at Lake Changjin 2 is at $587 million).