Well, Focus earned $19.1 million this weekend, which is underwhelming for a Will Smith movie, as Variety was weirdly quick to proclaim.
That said, $19.1 million is a pretty good take for a late-February release of a non-franchise picture with murky marketing, Will Smith or no Will Smith. I don’t think Glenn Ficarra and John Requa will consider this a negative, at any rate.
Kingsman: The Secret Service held onto second place with $11.75 million, with the SpongeBob sequel a very close third with $11.2 million. People like what they like, you know?
Oh, and Xavier Dolan’s insufferable Mommy won big at the Screenies, scooping up a total of nine awards: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing and Makeup. I would argue that it deserved precisely none of them, except maybe Suzanne Clement’s Supporting Actress win … but I’m not a member of the Academy, so what do I know.
Anyway, Mommy‘s triumph makes a nice bookend to Birdman‘s Oscar run a week ago, in that it demonstrates the Canadian film industry is just as gullible as its American cousins. Hooray for art!
I wrote a thing about the Screenies for the NOW website, but that’s the gist of it, really.