Will Smith has been the king of the summer blockbusters for over a decade, but that status has been put in question since After Earth completely flopped this weekend. The film was drowned by a mix of bad reviews, poor timing and its connection to the recent master of flops - director M. Night Shyamalan.
While Fast & Furious 6 took a steep fall from its $120 million Memorial Day weekend, it still won this weekend with just $36 million, reports Box Office Mojo. That was a huge 65 percent fall from the holiday weekend. It’s now up to $170.4 million domestically.
The magic caper film Now You See Me did much better than expected, opening at No. 2 with $28.05 million. It earned a great A- CinemaScore grade from audiences, meaning that it could be a sleeper hit this summer. Now You See Me was actually Summit and Lionsgate’s best opening for a non-Twilight film.
After Earth , released by Sony, made just $27 million. While Sony wasn’t expecting this film to reach Independence Day or Men in Black III levels, even that is worse than expected. According to Entertainment Weekly, this is Smith’s worst opening since 1993’s Made In America, which made $11.3 million. It also fared worse than the awful Wild, Wild West film, which opened to $27.8 million in 1999.
The film was directed by Shyamalan, whose name was kept out of the trailers and TV spots. Still, everyone knew it was his film, especially the reviewers. It’s got an embarrassing 12 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
There was also wide speculation that the film was a Scientology allegory. Vulture compared several elements of the film to the words of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
The rest of the Top 5 included Star Trek Into Darkness, which made $16.4 million in its third weekend. It’s still running behind 2009’s Star Trek, having made $181.2 million so far. Epic added $16.4 million.
Also, The Hangover Part III made just $15.9 million and has only made $88.1 million so far. At this point, Part II was already at $185.8 million.
image: Sony