*According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Red Tails” did far better than expected (by the Hollywood establishment that is.)
In its opening weekend “Red Tails” brought in $19.1 million for a solid number 2 placing at the box office behind “Underworld Awakening” with $25.4 million.
The back story behind “Red Tails” is that Producer George Lucas spent 20 years pursuing the project, and recently revealed he couldn’t get any studio to finance the film because of an all-black cast. He finally decided to put up the money himself, and spent $58 million on the production budget and another $35 in distribution costs.
Weekend/Domestic Box Office Jan. 20-Jan. 22
Title/Weeks in Release/Studio/Theater Count/Three Day Weekend Total/Cume
1. Underworld: Awakening (1), Sony/3,078, $25.4 million
2. Red Tails (1), Fox/2,512, $19.1 million
3. Contraband (2), Universal/2,870, $12.2 million, $46.1 million
4. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (5), Warner Bros./2,630, $10.5 million, $11.2 million
5. Haywire (1), Relativity Media/2,439, $9 million
6. Beauty and the Beast (3D) (2), Disney/2,625, $23.5 million, $33.4 million
7. Joyful Noise (2), Warner Bros./Alcon/2,735, $6.1 million, $21.9 million
8. Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (6), Paramount/2,519, $5.5 million, $197.3 million
9. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (6), Warner Bros./2,485, $4.8 million, $178.6 million
10. The Iron Lady (4), Weinstein Co./1,076, $3.7 million, $12.6 million.
Read/learn MORE at the Hollywood Reporter.
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Good Flix. I recommend it
Well, I was close.
I predicted top three in the $20M territory.
It was good. I recommend folks support this project.
The action sequences were great! Thought the dialog and story line could have been better written and more compelling. Was not feeling the whole subplot about the Italian romance – could have instead added something about the African American women who also served during WWII.
Overall it was good to see AA men portrayed as brave, loyal and willing to do what needed to be done. Also wonderful to see the fraternal friendship and love for each other displayed by the characters.
I think Red Tails is a pretty decent flick, but I think HBO’s The Tuskegee Airmen is better. Red Tails also suffers from weak and corny dialog as well as lackluster FX. I also think there’s very little action. I did have a problem with the interracial romance in the sense that it wasn’t rendered realistically. There was absolutely NO negative reaction from white men (Italian or American military) nor the girl’s mother. C’mon now, this is 1942-1944. These black men got all kinds of shit for just being there and they want us to believe this interracial couple could just tra la la throughout the entire town without some type of incident…yeah, right.
Nate Parker (Easy) and David Oyelowo (Lightning) are the standouts for me. It was also nice to see black folks on screen in a positive light that shows our intelligence, spirit, determination, and courage.
Although 19 million is good I am disappointed that is all it could do for the first weekend. It shows what our people are willing to pay to see. “Madea Goes To Jail” pulled in 41 million its first weekend.