Ben-Hur’ Is Epic, Big-Budget Bust

Meanwhile, younger audiences, the demographic Hollywood has the toughest time connecting to, would have little interest in Ben-Hur on name recognition alone. To be fair, it has already made $10.7 million in global markets. With Ben-Hur’s overseas roll-out still ongoing, it may make its money back eventually, but for now, the period epic joins the likes of The BFG and Alice Through The Looking Glass on the list of films that have struggled to survive in 2016’s gladiatorial arena. Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer also leaned heavily on producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, the team behind Son of God and The Bible. “They courted the Christian demographic too late”. The Seth Rogen-starrer will finish the weekend with around a $64 million total take, an impressive result for a film that cost just $19 million to produce (though at least two dozen of the film’s animators have publicly complained that production company Nitrogen Studios pressured them into doing free overtime work).

Kubo, the latest stop-motion title from LAIKA, lands at No. 4 with approximately $12.6 million, the lowest opening gross of any of the animation house’s wide releases. “It’s Todd [Phillips]”, said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.’ distribution chief.

After a summer characterised by box-office blunders, it was barely thinkable that yet another $100 million-plus budget film could flop. War Dogs finished third this week with $14.3 million and I was expecting it to find a larger audience. “Ben-Hur” received an “A-” and “War Dogs” got a “B”.

Written and directed by Ayer based on the characters from DC Entertainment, the film also stars Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, Cara Delevingne, Adam Beach, and Karen Fukuhara in her feature film debut.

The animated comedy from Focus, called “Kubo and the Two Strings“, landed in the number-four spot this weekend with $12.61M across 3,260 locations. Suicide Squad has earned $262.2 million in North America, beating out the domestic takes for The Amazing Spider-Man’s $262 million and Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s $259 million. The remake of the 1977 children’s film earned $11.3 million, bringing its stateside total to $42.9 million after two weeks of release. When you add in the worldwide gross, the film has made nearly $573 million, which is pretty good for a film that has taken the hits from critics like Suicide Squad has.

So with the Hollywood summer winding down before it gives way to the industry’s “prestige season” of autumn Oscar bait, just how did this season shake out at the box office?