New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Jason Barney: There is really no way to paint this other than a pretty big disappointment. Looking at it through the budgetary lens is most explanatory, and two weeks away from the opening, Tomorrowland is not doing well. The budget was just huge, which symbolizes the ambition behind the effort, but it is sinking fast. $190 million spent on a film that has earned just $63 million domestically and barely more than that internationally? Ouch. The drops have not been kind. Unfortunately for Disney, this will go down as one of the bigger disappointments of the year.

Kim Hollis: Poltergeist debuted over Memorial Day weekend with a four-day total of $26.3 million and has a cumulative total to date of $38.5 million. What do you think about the performance of this remake?

Edwin Davies: This strikes me as pretty fine. Poltergeist cost more than most horror films do these days, which tend to be micro-budget offerings that make huge returns on investment with the sort of performance we've seen from the film so far, and that makes it less impressive than the likes of Unfriended. Still, it should eke out a slender profit while still in theaters, which is a pretty anticlimactic result for a remake that has been in one stage of development or another for more than a decade. It certainly isn't going to threaten the success of the original, which, when adjusted for inflation, earned more than $200 million back in 1982.

Felix Quinonez: I think it's an OK performance and will see a profit before all is said and done. No one will lose their job but no one's career will be made because of this. On the other hand, because the original is held in such high regard, I'm thinking they were hoping for more than this when they brought back the Poltergeist brand. They could have made this kind of profit off any micro-budgeted horror movie.

Michael Lynderey: Well, it'll be the highest grossing horror film of 2015 for now, easily beating Unfriended. And I suppose given the budget and other things, it's not the worst result in the world. But Poltergeist isn't just another remake - it's a redo of one of the biggest horror films of the 1980s, and one that was known for its quality and class. It's a shame that its remake has ended up as another generic ghost movie with a middling box office gross. I think the property is of such a high level that it deserved a bigger-scale treatment and more respect. That's one of my issues with this trend of remakes: it turns giants into men, memorable films into mediocrities that don't stand out at all from all the other horror films around them, and usually don't capture what made the originals so special.

Ryan Kyle: In a year from now, no one will remember this movie even happened. For a horror film not released produced by Jason Blum or shot for a penny, this is a higher than usual result. I expected a lower opening, given the lack of hype surrounding it, but the release date change to open ahead of Insidious 3 was a smart move. Quick falls ahead should have the movie top out at about $50 million or double its opening weekend. Money will be made, but not much more than the initial investment.

Jason Barney: Remakes of classic horror films earn a shrug from me anyway, and Poltergeist was the definition of a painfully boring Memorial Day weekend slate. It will make money in the long run, but other than being an option for movie-goers for the next couple of weeks, this will be a totally forgettable project.

Continued:       1       2