‘The Woman King’ Takes North American Box Office Throne

Cinema Guild has acquired North American distribution rights for Human Flowers of Flesh directed by Helena Wittmann (Drift).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” remained at the top of the South Korean box office for the fourth consecutive weekend. Its enduring success came despite a slew of new releases intended to catch the National Foundation Day holiday weekend traffic. Between Friday and Sunday “Confidential Assignment 2” garnered $2.19 million from 304,000 ticket sales, and a market share of 29%. The weekend earnings lift it to a $43.3 million cumulative since release on Sept. 7, 2022. It is only the fourth film this year to have passed the six million spectators mark and the third Korean film to do so, following “The Roundup” (12.7 million) and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” (7.26 million).

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Hold onto your bucket hats: Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train” crossed $100 million at the domestic box office. It’s an impressive milestone (in post-COVID times) for an original movie that doesn’t involve marquee comic book heroes or intergalactic adventures. It helps, of course, that a bankable actor like Brad Pitt stars in the film, as a heavily therapized assassin named Ladybug. “Bullet Train” reached $101 million in domestic ticket sales on Friday, making it only the 14th release this year to hit that benchmark. With another $130 million at the international box office, the film has now earned $231 million in global ticket sales to date.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter After years of declarations about the death of the romantic comedy, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s recent commercial hit “The Lost City” proved there’s still a place on the big screen for meet-cute stories. Now, comedian and actor Billy Eichner is taking a stab at the feel-good genre with “Bros,” an R-rated romantic comedy that opens in 3,300 North American theaters on Friday. The movie, from Universal Pictures, is aiming to generate $8 million to $10 million in its opening weekend. It’s not a huge number, but the film carries a modest $22 million production budget. “Bros” is debuting in theaters alongside Paramount’s R-rated chiller “Smile,” which is projected to cast a toothy glow over the domestic box office charts with $16 million to $20 million. That’s a stellar result given that it only cost the studio $17 million to make.

Naman Ramachandran Cinedigm has acquired all North American rights to horror film “The Outwaters,” a throwback to the early days of the found footage genre. Written and directed by Robbie Banfitch, “The Outwaters” plays out over three memory cards found in a sun-drenched section of the Mojave Desert. The footage within is that of a foursome, who set out to make a music video while camping, led by a charismatic filmmaker. Their trip starts out uneventful, though their peace is occasionally disrupted by unexplained sounds, vibrations, and unnatural animal behavior. Then one night everything changes, sending the foursome on a mind-bending trip through terror.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China recorded an unchanged top five films and its weakest box office weekend since Chinese New Year. Nationwide gross box office was just $18.6 million. Comedy drama film “Give Me Five” held on to the top spot for the third week, with a weekend score of $6.3 million (RMB43.3 million), according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. It now has a cumulative of $46.4 million since release on Sept. 9, 2022. The film is the story of a young man who is helping his father rediscover his lost memories. As he does so, he is transported back in time and accidentally alters his parent’s pasts. That means he must reunite the pair or risk never being born. It stars Ma Li Chang Yuan and Wei Xiang and is directed by Zhang Luan.

Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream swept up a cool $922,000 at the domestic box office this weekend, while an impressive array of top industry players took Saturday to mull the global future of arthouse film. The real test — of specialty’s core adult audience willingness to return to cinemas — starts this fall, according to execs at the Zurich Summit, an in-person event straddling the Zurich Film Festival.

The run-up to the release of “Don’t Worry Darling” has been filled with tabloid headlines about the filming of the movie, most notably over an alleged feud between Pugh and director Olivia Wilde. Meanwhile, critics have mostly panned the film with a 38% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Baek Yerin will soon be heading to North America to tour – find dates, cities and ticket sale info below.On September 20, the singer took to Twitter to announce her forthcoming 2022 North American tour, which will take place from November to December. Baek will be kicking off the 14-show tour in Atlanta on November 28, before heading to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.<2022 Yerin Baek North America Tour>⠀Nov 28 : AtlantaNov 30 : HoustonDec 1 : Fort WorthDec 4 : Santa AnaDec 5 : Los AngelesDec 7 : BerkeleyDec 9 : DenverDec 11 : ChicagoDec 13 : TorontoDec 15 : BostonDec 17 : New YorkDec 19 : Washington DC— Yerin Baek (@yerinbaek) September 19, 2022Tickets to the concerts, which will be available here via Ticketmaster, go on sale on September 22 at 10am local time.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comedy drama film “Give Me Five” held on to the top spot at the mainland Chinese box office with a weekend score of just $7.4 million (RMB50.8 million). The film is the story of a young man who is helping his father rediscover his lost memories. As he does so, he is transported back in time and accidentally alters his parent’s pasts. That means he must reunite the pair or risk never being born. It stars Ma Li Chang Yuan and Wei Xiang and is directed by Zhang Luan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief For the second weekend running, comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” held top spot at the South Korean box office. And it did so with a massive 75% share of the market. But as the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) holiday retreated into the rear-view mirror numbers, both for the sequel film and the nationwide box office, came crashing down. “Confidential Assignment 2” earned $6.89 million over the latest Friday to Sunday period, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). That figure was down 57% compared with its opening salvo of $21.0 million a week earlier.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based arthouse distributor KimStim has acquired all North American rights to Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s third feature film, Stonewalling, which recently premiered in the Giornate Degli Autori section of this year’s Venice film festival.

“The Woman King,” the historical action epic starring Viola Davis, took in $1.7 million at the box office from its Thursday night preview screenings, which opened at 3 p.m. on 3,271 screens. The Sony and eOne film will launch at 3,765 locations this weekend.In its opening weekend, the studio projects “The Woman King” to earn $12 million against a $50 million budget.

King Charles is taking a day of “contemplation” amid the exhausting schedule of public engagements and formal ceremonies in the wake of his mother’s death. The new monarch, 73, retired to his Highgrove estate on Wednesday evening (14. 09.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Fresh off its enthusiastic world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, the Viola Davis-led historical epic “The Woman King” will touch down in 3,700 North American movie theaters over the weekend. The domestic box office desperately needs a boost, but will U.S. audiences be as receptive as festival-goers in Canada? Touted as the real-life “Black Panther,” Sony’s “The Woman King” is aiming to collect at least $15 million in its domestic debut. Independent box office observers are optimistic that opening weekend returns could reach $17 million to $20 million. Yet Sony, who co-financed the movie with eOne, is projecting $12 million, in line with 2018’s “Widows,” which also starred Davis. Replicating those ticket sales, even with tempered pandemic-expectations, would be tepid-at-best since “The Woman King” carries a $50 million price tag.

Even with a Covid-shortened performance schedule, Lea Michele’s star turn in Funny Girl was serious business last week, with box office for the musical revival more than doubling from the previous week.

Ethan Shanfeld Can Zach Cregger’s slasher film “The Barbarian” scare up enough ticket sales to top the domestic box office? Though it is a quiet week, with only one other major release — the Indian Hindi-language action-adventure “Brahmastra Part One: Shiva” — the horror film edged out box office mainstays on Friday as “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Bullet Train” fought to retain their hold at the top of the charts. “Barbarian” took home $3.8 million on Friday, with a projected $9 million over the weekend. Trailing behind is “Brahmastra,” which opened with $2 million, a number that is estimated to grow to $3.6 million by Sunday.

Super has taken North American rights to Colm Bairéad’s award-winning drama The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin), which was recently announced as Ireland’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards and selected for the 2022 European Film Awards.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Family comedy “Table For Six” has set an opening day local record for a comedy film in Hong Kong, to the relief of producers who were forced to digest a releasing delay of six months. The Sunny Chan-directed film opened Wednesday in Hong Kong and Macau at 61 theatres, playing a total of 608 sessions. That gave it an accumulated box office of HK$1,986,701 ($255,000). “Table for Six,” which chronicles a family’s holiday gathering where food, love, friendship, jealousy and relationships are on the menu, had originally been planned as a dish to be served at Chinese New Year, in February. And producers had assembled a cast of major Hong Kong and regional talents, including Dayo Wong, Stephy Tang, Louise Cheung, Ivana Wong, Lin Min-Chen and Chan Charm Man.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Art-house title “Return to Dust” was a surprise weekend winner, topping the mainland China box office in its ninth weekend of release. The astonishing feat occurred on an otherwise depressed weekend in which China’s cinema box office dipped to a three-month low. This reflected the summer season winding to an end and anti-COVID measures once again forcing major Chinese cities into retreat. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway showed “Return” grossing $5.3 million (RMB36.2 million) between Friday and Sunday. Those three days accounted for nearly half of the $12.7 million (RMB87.4 million) cumulative total it has earned since release on July 8, 2022.