During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.
Ahead of next week’s Fourth of July weekend, the studios are dropping some of the better titles of the summer this weekend, or at least, what were supposed to be. On the VOD and iTunes charts, Jon Stewart’s Irresistible has knocked King of Staten Island off the top spot after two weekends. Stewart’s film, which stars Steve Carell and Rose Byrne, has not gotten great reviews, so far, and I think even the 40 percent it has received on Rotten Tomatoes is charitable, given the media’s rightful affection for Stewart after 16 years as the host of The Daily Show. Reviews for the film were mixed here on Uproxx, too, with Mike Ryan liking it OK until the twist and Vince Mancini enjoying it (I was more in Mike’s camp on this one).
Again, being the top movie on VOD/iTunes is relative, and we don’t have actual figures or even the budget, but it is safe to say that the budget was modest (it’s a Focus Features film), and the revenue is (likewise) probably modest. Meanwhile, King of Staten Island, by virtue of being in the top two for the last three weeks, has probably generated some pretty solid revenue. Other than the appearance of Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried’s You Should Have Left (#3 on Fandango/#6 on iTunes), the digital charts look largely the same this week, although — as always — there are some fun little curiosities. Crazy Stupid Love is tenth on iTunes, for instance (probably because Carell fans wanted to watch a good movie after Irresistible). Meanwhile, number four on iTunes is a 2019 horrormovie called Sea Fever, which looks like some underwater alien film whose biggest star is Dougray Scott.
Scoob had a dramatic fall on both the iTunes rental and Fandango VOD charts this week because the film — after being available for $20 digital rental over the last six weeks — is now available for free to HBO Max subscribers. I wonder if that is to entice more HBO Max subscribers, or if there wasn’t much more money to make from the film on VOD?
Amazon Prime doesn’t provide charts, but My Spy — which looks like an old Dwayne Johnson movie that hired Dave Bautista because The Rock was busy — is the top family film on the service, after skipping a theatrical release for Prime Video. Hopefully, for the sake of their original slate, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s 7500 (released last weekend) is the top original movie overall movie on Amazon Prime Video.
My Spy, starring Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman, is the #1 Family Movie on Prime Video! Watch it today.
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) June 27, 2020
The big movie this weekend on Netflix is Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams’ Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga. I have heard mixed things about it, and the critics’ reviews echo that (58 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), but it seems to please those who have sought it out (82 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes). The second biggest film of the weekend on Netflix is, again, 365 Days, the Polish erotic drama that sits at 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been in the top five on Netflix for a month now, so I finally broke down and watched it, and it is every bit as awful as the 0 percent RT score promises. Absolutely horrendous!
The rest of Netflix’s top five chart sees the family film, Nut Job at number three; Athlete A, the new documentary on Larry Nassar’s abuses as the gymnastics doctor, at number four; and strangely Gaspar Noe’s 2015 French film, Love, at number five. I have no idea where this one came from: A five-year-old art-house French flick with bad reviews? Maybe it’s an “erotic drama,” too.
From what I can tell of next weekend’s new releases, aside from John Lewis: Good Trouble on VOD, it looks like it’ll be a good weekend to catch up on movies you have already missed, like 7500, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s first film in several years, and yet no one has really said anything about it, despite decent reviews (69 percent on RT). The huge draw, however, will be Hamilton, which is coming to Disney+ on July 3rd.