‘Uncharted’ Earns $21M Overseas As ‘Death On The Nile’ And ‘Marry Me’ Stumble

Uncharted, Sony’s Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg video game adaptation, which opens domestically on Thursday night (press screening tomorrow), opened in 15 markets overseas. It ranked #1 in each of those territories, as the $120 million actioner earned $21.5 million in 5,300 theaters. The film is tracking 12% ahead of Eternals, 18% higher than Black Widow and 21% over Shang-Ch in the like for like market comparison. We’ll see if that means anything in the long run, but video game movies (Resident Evil: Afterlife, Need For Speed, Rampage, etc.) do massively skew overseas, to the point that it’s arguably why Hollywood kept making them even amid mixed (at best) box office results. If it performs well enough, Tom Holland could have the top two spots at the domestic box office next weekend.

That’s where the good news for new movies ends. Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile topped the domestic weekend box office with just $12.8 million. Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, released in November of 2017 back when Fox wasn’t yet under the Disney umbrella, opened with $28.8 million and legged out to $102 million domestic. Even with better reviews and the same formula that worked 4.25 years ago, Death on the Nile opened 55% lower than Murder on the Orient Express. What’s terrifying is that, unlike a lot of Covid-era whiffs, I’d argue the star-studded, glamorous adult-skewing murder mystery would have been a solid hit in pre-Covid times. I mean, Snake Eyes and The Suicide Squad were always doomed, but this one… this should have been a hit.

In a non-Covid time, even a 1/3 drop would be normal for a sequel to a liked-but-not-beloved franchise starter which earned $102 million domestic and $353 million worldwide. Disney did the work in terms of copious previews, television spots and promotional art. They should have left it where it was in late 2019, but that applies to several Covid casualties (No Time to Die, Wonder Woman 1984 and Top Gun: Maverick, etc.). To blame the “problematic” nature of its ensemble cast presumes that anyone outside the bubble cared about Armie Hammer even before he was accused of being a cannibal (or, more seriously, allegations of sexual assault). No one stayed home because Russell Brand and Letitia Wright are allegedly anti-vax and/or because Gal Gadot dropped a cringeworthy cover of “Imagine” in early 2020. 

Universal’s Marry Me opened with $8 million over the weekend. That’s not good, although the Jennifer Lopez/Owen Wilson film is concurrently available on Peacock (which didn’t stop Halloween Kills from nabbing a best-case-scenario $49 million debut) and only cost $23 million. Alas, i’s not like Lopez programmers were breaking records before Covid. Hustlers is the glorious exception to the rule (a $33 million debut and a $157 million global cume on a $20 million budget), but even Second Act earned “just” $39 million domestic from a $6.5 million debut in December 2018. Its $72 million finish was great on a $16 million budget, but Monster-in-Law ($155 million on a $43 million budget) was 17 years ago. Ditto Owen Wilson, whose Father Figures, Masterminds and No Escape didn’t set the box office on fire. 

While many of us mourn the death of the Hollywood romantic comedy, Netflix has been offering up approximations of the genuine article for years. Why go out to a theater to see Marry Me when you can stay home and watch I Want You Back on Amazon or The Royal Treatment on Netflix? Likewise, while Death on the Nile is a high-quality, old-school ensemble murder mystery, audiences have the choice of staying in with Netflix’s comedic Murderville or Apple’s genre-hopping The Afterparty. When audiences can get “content” at home that approximate the genuine theatrical article, there’s less incentive to see the one playing at a theater near you. Audiences can stay home for Marry Me, and they can wait a few months to watch Death on the Nile on HBO Max or Hulu. 

Blacklight opened with a surprisingly leggy $3.6 million weekend (a 2.92x multiplier. That’s a 2.9x multiplier and right between the two prior Open Road/Briarcliff-distributed Liam Neeson actioners (Honest Thief with $4.1 million and The Marksman with $3.1 million). To be fair, there’s more to see in cinemas these days, and to be frank Blacklight may be Neeson’s worst post-Taken action movie. Even Taken 3 had a big budget and actual production values. This sparse thriller has shockingly little in the way of scale, scope and action. Blacklight is arguably worse than what you’d find on streaming or VOD (not even counting the “good stuff” from Scott Adkins, Dolph Lundgren and/or Michael Jai White). Pre-Covid, these films (Run All Night, The Commuter, A Walk Among the Tombstones, etc.) used to be worth seeing in theaters.