BOX OFFICE: “Odyssey” Sails on, “Hadestown” Cracks the Top Five

Deadline.com is projecting the second weekend of Christopher Nolan’s latest epic and latest blockbuster “The Odyssey” to fall just short of $85 million. As it opened at $123.5 million last weekend, that’s a stunningly small 30% (31-32) from its big fat take on opening weekend.

It earned $26 million on Friday alone, has no significant wide release competition this week, and thus it didn’t lose any of those IMAX and premium screen and sound experience theaters in your neighborhood cineplex, a big reason for the big numbers. It cleared $200 million at the domestic box office market with its first showings Friday. Deadline also notes that it’s earning more money (pre-Trumpflation) than “The Dark Knight” (2008) did on its second weekend, a “record” for C. Nolan.

The kicker is, that’s a low estimate. The buzz around the film, dominating conversations on social media and inviting “hot take” after “Hot take” “think” pieces from magazine sites like Salon and Slate about “why conservatives hate it” (a modern retelling of a myth that pretty much invites a diverse cast — conservatives identify as racists) and this grasping-at-straws fool’s effort at contrarianism.

I had a fun back and forth with a classicist who figures the film’s Athena (Zendaya) is but a figment of our hero’s imagination, a goddess from memory imagined as perhaps someone he knew, a child he left behind in some earlier wandering, etc. Calypso and Circe and the Cyclops are “real,” but not Athena?

So $90 million may be turn out to be the closer to what “The Odyssey” earns on its second weekend.

Disney’s “Moana” bomb (relative to cost) will flirt with $10 million on its third weekend, coming in second. That will push it over the $100 million mark, and as it’s fading fast, it won’t come close to covering its $250+ budget, even though it’s making slightly more dough overseas.

But it could lose second place to the enduring “Toy Story 5,” which is on track to be well over $9. The third or maybe second place film this weekend will clear the $450 million mark at the domestic box office by Wed. of next week. Maybe Tuesday.

And then there’s the third “family/kids” movie still making money, “Minions & Monsters.” winding down slowly enough ($9 million, fourth place) to ensure it will finish its run in the $190-200 million range, as it will be in the low $160s by midnight Sunday.

In fifth place, “Hadestown: The Musical” becomes something of a limited budget hit for Bleecker Street, as it should clear $7 and may flirt with $9 million on this, its biggest and only “big-ish” weekend. The film of the Broadway hit folding in a couple of Greek myths will only enjoy a limited one week run.

IFC’s thriller “Motor City” could crack the nether regions of the top ten. I think I’m heading out to catch that one today, and maybe “Hadestown.”

“Evil Dead Burn,” “Young Washington” and “The Invite” are likely to stick in the top ten.

“Supergirl,” “Disclosure Day” and the long run of “Obsession” will fight over the last spot.

I’ll update these figures as the weekend progresses and Sat. and Sunday data rolls in.

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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