He said he’d be back, but perhaps the machine should have stayed in the past. With the opening weekend box office numbers coming in, it’s now clearTerminator: Dark Fateis bombing by underperforming at the box office. The sequel has pulled in about $29.2 million in ticket sales for its opening weekend, which is well below the studio’s initial projections for up to $47 million.
The publication also reports the sequel isn’t faring too much better in its overseasmarkets. With its high budget and marketing costs, it’s been estimated the movie will need to reach $470 million to break-even, meaningDark Fateis on track to be the least profitable installment of the series yet.
So, what was it that doomed theTerminatorsequel from the very start of its theatrical run? For whatever reason, it’s clear that audiences just don’t care about the once uber-popular franchise as much as they used to. Perhaps it’s just a simple matter of audiences gettingTerminatorfatigue. After the first two movies, it has been proven time and again that Hollywood is not able to recapture that same interest. Maybe after the legendary original movie and its highly-beloved sequel,The Terminatorseries had explored all of the creative territory possible before the story starts feeling redundant. If you ask around, you probably won’t have a hard time finding fans of the series who feel the story should have ended with the perfect ending ofTerminator 2: Judgment Day.
Another possible reason for the new movie’s lackluster performance would be its reputation as a “woke” reboot of the franchise, with the implication that . Some critics have already pointed to this as the primarycause for Dark Fate bombing, suggesting the sequel sacrifices important and established elements of the franchise in favor of making the story more “progressive.” Whether this is true or not, this reputation could have soured some potential ticket-buyers from attendingDark Fateshowings in an era where many Americans are starting to feel movies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment are just gettingtoopolitically-correct. Coined by bestselling author John Ringo, the phrase “Get Woke, Go Broke” certainly comes to mind.
For what it’s worth,Terminator: Dark Fate is at least faring much better criticallythan the previous two installments of the series. On Rotten Tomatoes,Dark Fatehas brought the franchise back to Fresh ratings, tyingTerminator 3: Rise of the Machineswith a 69% score as of this writing. This is far above the rotten 33% score ofTerminator: Salvationand the even-lower score of 27% forTerminator: Genisys. Still, it does once again prove the franchise is unable to reach the same heights as the first two installments, which respectively earned 100% and 93% Certified Fresh scores on the review-aggregation website.
Looking at the rest of the box office,JokerandMaleficent: Mistress of Evilwere neck and neck for second and third place, withJokerwinning the number 2 spot with $13.9 million for the weekend. That brings its domestic total up to $299 million as it edges closer to its billion dollar hual worldwide.Maleficent: Mistress of Evilsits in third place with $12.1 million, earning $84 million domestically.Harrietarrives in fourth place with a debut of $12 million. And in 5th place isThe Addams Familywith another $8.4 million. It now sits at $85.2 million total domestic.
Terminator: Dark Fateis currently playing in theaters everywhere, along with the rest of the top ten. Including the long-awaited return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, there are some things to appreciate the sequel, but apparently not enough to recreate the success ofT2This news comes to us from Forbes.
