| No | Movie Title | Weekend Gross | Overall Gross | Week # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terminator: Dark Fate | $29,000,000 | $29,000,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Joker | $13,925,000 | $299,611,992 | 5 |
| 3 | Maleficent: Mistress of Evil | $12,175,000 | $84,324,711 | 3 |
| 4 | Harriet | $12,000,000 | $12,000,000 | 1 |
| 5 | The Addams Family | $8,499,007 | $85,295,007 | 4 |
| 6 | Zombieland 2: Double Tap | $7,350,000 | $59,307,162 | 3 |
| 7 | Countdown | $5,850,000 | $17,766,036 | 2 |
| 8 | Black and Blue | $4,050,000 | $15,442,478 | 2 |
| 9 | Motherless Brooklyn | $3,650,000 | $3,650,000 | 1 |
| 10 | Arctic Dogs | $3,100,000 | $3,100,000 |
Well, this is kind of surprising.
Terminator: Dark Fate, the much-hyped Terminator sequel that ignores everything post-Judgement Day and sees the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and James Cameron, fizzled at the box office this weekend. The movie made only $29 million against a budget of $185 million. Once again. I must remind you that this is a Terminator sequel produced by James Cameron and starring the original cast. This was a big deal and was expected to bring in much, much more money. Estimates had it pegged at at least $40 million, which is itself a low number. I’m not a mathematician but my calculations say that 29 is less than 40.
In my heart of hearts I quietly suspected that this movie might not bring in the cash that some expected but I didn’t think it would have an opening that is this embarrassing. It’s pretty surprising. But, wait, is it? There are many reasons that Dark Fate ended up being a box office bomb. When you look at everything being promoted about Dark Fate - the cast, Cameron, ignoring most of the sequels - they are all admitting that every Terminator movie since Judgement Day has sucked. It’s a course-correction and they’re proud to market it as such. They keep churning these things out but none of them have been good since Cameron left the franchise. So that would lead us to believe that audiences might be sick of Terminator movies, with good reason. Why would they be enthusiastic for Dark Fate after being burned so many times? Sometimes a series just loses its charm and can’t come back (coughTheMatrixcough). Even if it’s been years since Cameron’s involvement, even if Schwarzenegger and Hamilton returned, even if they’re ignoring the sub-par installments, it still might not matter. The damage has been done to the series and it seems that audiences have just gotten their fill. They’re over Terminator. They have moved on and no amount of course-correction can fix that.
Maybe audiences would have been enraptured if Cameron was more than just a producer. Maybe they would have turned out if he was the director as well. Maybe they’d be on board if more time had passed since the last god awful film. Maybe if it felt somehow different than the simple run-and-gun, Terminator-chases-good-guys premise that had dominated these movies. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe then Terminator: Dark Fate would have been a hit. But those things didn’t happen and Dark Fate is most definitely NOT a hit.
So I think it’s safe to say that this may be the end of the road for the Terminator movies. Cameron will be hard at work on his Avatar movies so don’t expect him to return again. Both Schwarzenegger and Hamilton won’t be back if audiences aren’t eager to see them (well, I’m not too sure about Arnie since he has popped up in a lot of these films). The studio is going to let Terminator sit for awhile, maybe forever. There is a chance that they’ll fire it back up again in a few years but for now, for the foreseeable future, things look absolutely done.
The rest of the box office chart held pretty steady. There were a few new additions including Motherless Brooklyn, Harriet and something called Arctic Dogs which I am told is a real movie that real people went to see. Harriet made the biggest splash with $12,000,000, a decent number for a relatively quiet weekend. Somehow that Countdown horror movie only dropped a few spots. Oh, right, it was Halloween. Remaining in the second slot, Joker got THIS close to $300 million. It is time to once again remind you that that movie an absolute beast and is definitely putting some WB exec’s kids through college.
Next weekend is a pretty busy one. Doctor Sleep will likely shine (hehehe) after much hype and good reviews. Midway will bring in folks wanting a big, loud action film and Last Christmas will draw in a crowd that longs for something romantic and cute and fun. Meanwhile, Dark Fate will still be there for the morbidly curious and those wanting to see Arnie as the Terminator one last time. Something for everyone!
