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- CineQuote Newsletter #62
Have you Wickeded yet?
Wicked: For Good opened this weekend (we actually don’t approve of the colon usage in that title but whatever), to 150M domestic, and 226M abroad (response below.)
…it made HOW much?
That’s WAY more than last year’s Wicked: the First, which one ONLY made 114M domestic and 164M abroad. Full disclosure, we have yet to see Wicked: For Good over here at CineQuote, but the buzz is palpable, and yeah sure, Minecraft technically had a bigger opening weekend this year, but half of those ticket sales were kids doing the chicken bucket thing (try getting in your time machine and explaining that trend to the great philosophers of Ancient Greece.) We’re not sure if the Wicked sequel will be able to best the original Wicked, either in terms of total box office or critical reception, but we just got word it’s the biggest opening weekend for any movie adaptation of a Broadway show (suck it, Cats!) That’s a wicked achievement for Wicked, and we wonder if Wicked will wicked Wicked. In fact, Wicked wicked wicked wicked Wicked. Wicked wicked wicked wicked wicked wickedly. Wicked, wicked wicked wicked wicked Wicked wicked. Wicked!*
*excessive usage of the word wicked is a classic symptom of Wicked fever
Last Week’s Highlights
Highest Win Percentage90.6%  50 First Dates (2004) | Lowest Win Percentage47.4%  Boomerang (1992) |
Suffice it to say, last week was particularly tough, pummeling players with with six movies registering below the 80% success rate. Thankfully Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore came along to offer a life raft to climb aboard in those hypothermic North Atlantic waters of defeat. Six years after their first on-screen pairing in The Wedding Singer, 50 FIRST DATES managed to retain some movie magic, despite Rob Schneider trying as he might to pass as yet another race he definitely is not. The third time Sandler and Barrymore matched up on screen (Blended in 2014) was significantly less successful. That one is currently sitting at a 16% Rotten Tomatoes score*. Perhaps that means we won’t get a fourth collaboration, or perhaps those two need to have a romance, known industry-wide, to get to Tracy/Hepburn levels (who had nine movies together.)
*Critics’ score
On the lower end of the scale was Eddie Murphy’s debonair lothario rom-com BOOMERANG, which despite the dismal 47% score cracked the top 20 at the box office, making more money than The Mighty Ducks, Encino Man, and Scent of a Woman (which all would have breached the 50% success rate for sure here on CQ.) This was a tricky one as the title isn’t mentioned anywhere in the movie (we don’t think) and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Aboriginal weaponry (we also don’t think.) You kind of have to stretch a metaphor that his nature of going and coming back again is a bit boomerangic. Gosh, we don’t know where this title comes from, BUT we do know this movie got a lot of flack back in the day for portraying a predominantly Black cast in positions of power and wealth, with critics calling it a "reverse world" and “unrealistic.” Here’s a great article written by Julian Kimble about Boomerang if you’re interested.
 Actor Jack McGee gives a positive review to Murtaugh’s daughter’s TV commercial in | Ace of the Week11.6 %“Yeah, I liked it. She made me want to go out and buy rubbers right now.” |
Before things starting getting too serious, and the body count started getting too high (34 kills!) LETHAL WEAPON 2 did have points of levity, one being Joe Pesci’s Bill Hicksian-rant on drive-thru restaurants, and the other being this commercial for condoms that we guess was controversial in the Murtaugh family (???) Roger should have been proud, after all that was a NATIONAL COMMERCIAL, presumably with residuals if it gets reupped. Tons of exposure for a young ingenue, but noooooo, we gotta flip the TV off and shame the poor girl. Thankfully longtime character Jack McGee was there to defuse (or ramp up?) the tension. Oh, and if you were wondering (you weren’t) what the pioneering businessman behind Ramses condoms looks like, you’re wrong, and in a weird origin story he first began in the sausage-casing trade (HEEEEELO!)
Here are the numbers for all the games last week.
CineQuote Movie | Win % | Ace % |
|---|---|---|
50 First Dates (2004) | 90.6% | 5.1% |
Thunderball (1965) | 79.3% | 5.5% |
Crocodile Dundee II (1988) | 78.0% | 3.1% |
Strange Days (1995) | 78.0% | 2.4% |
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) | 61.0% | 11.6% |
Australia (2008) | 60.9% | 2.6% |
Boomerang (1992) | 47.4% | 9.7% |
CQ Recommends
We recommend using the wrist strap on your Wiimote™. Safety first, ya bludgers!
 Locke (2013) | On the eve of the biggest challenge of his career, Ivan Locke receives a phone call that sets in motion a series of events that will unravel his family, job, and soul. Tom Hardy gets into his car and starts driving down the highway. He takes calls on speakerphone while commuting. That’s it, that’s the movie. It shouldn’t be that interesting, and yet with Tom Hardy behind the wheel and on the call, it very much is. Director Steven Knight has had way more success as a screenwriter than as a director, but this one he got right. -Sean |
A Lethal Weaponesque warning from the bad guys, or a gentle reminder from the good guys. Either or.
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