Nolte: Woke Dies at the Box Office, Including LeBron James' ‘Space Jam’ Sequel
It’s official: LeBron James is no Michael Jordan. In its second week, the obnoxiously woke, fading basketball talent’s Space Jam sequel collapsed with a 68 percent drop. The $150 million title grossed a crippling $10 million in week two, bringing its total gross to just $51 million.
Why Warner Bros. chose to hand an appealing franchise over to someone as unappealing and divisive as LeBron James is anyone’s guess. The result is that between a $150 million production budget and the additional $50 million – $80 million likely spent on promotion, Warner Bros. is probably looking at a write-off somewhere around $150 million, lol.
Worldwide, Lebron’s Space Jam: A New Legacysits at a humiliating $67 million, lol.
By comparison, 25 whole years ago, and in dollars that are not adjusted for inflation, Michael Jordan’s Space Jam dropped just 41 percent in its second weekend. The much-beloved original would go on to gross $90 million domestic and $230 million worldwide. LeBron won’t touch those numbers, lol.
Black Widow isn’t doing much better, which is terrifying news for Disney. After three weekends, thanks to this weekend’s 58 percent drop and a humiliating $10.8 million gross, the Marvel title sits at just $154 million domestic. The world can’t even save Black Widow. Its planetary gross is just $272 million.
Disney’s box office stool is held up with three legs: Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel. Well, right now, Disney is releasing Pixar titles on its Disney+ streaming service, which has removed the specialness that used to come with each new release, and Star Wars has committed suicide-by-woke at the box office, leaving only Marvel, which is why Black Widow’s box office collapse has Disney terrified.
Next up in the Marvel franchise is the launch of Phase 4 with September’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which has no movie stars, no Robert Downey Jr. A mere two months later comes Marvel’s Eternals, which has Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek, but no Robert Downey Jr. Neither of these titles look like they will be much fun. Marvel has also promised Phase 4 will be woke, and if they keep that promise, that will be the end of that.
With this weekend’s box office failure of Snake Eyes, one more major Hollywood franchise just bit the dust — in this case, the GI Joe franchise. Of all the dumb movies to make, this is one of the dumbest. Who is asking for a $100 million origin movie about Snake Eyes, a masked, silent supporting character in the GI Joe universe? The answer is no one. I do not know anyone asking for a third GI Joe movie.
Between the production budget and promotion, Paramount is into this dud to the tune of around $150 million, and it opened to just $14 million in 3,521 theaters. You can’t blame that on streaming. Snake Eyes is only available in theaters. You could smell the flop sweat all over the trailer. No movie stars and yet another origin story. Yawn.
The Forever Purge is another woke flop. It grossed less than $2 million in weekend four and sits at a pathetic $40 million. The world will also not save this one. While its predecessor, 2018’s First Purge, grossed $138 million worldwide, Forever Purge sits as a pathetic $52 million and will be lucky to gross half of that $138 million.
As the Purge franchise became more woke and increasingly self-important, it lost the goodwill of its audience. The first three are pretty good. Then it jumped off a woke cliff. Forever Purge is the wokest of them all and kersplat, lol.
