Box office surprises are usually explained afterwards, which is why the weekend result involving an adults-only fairy tale and a video game adaptation is worth pausing over. On paper the contest looked uneven. One film arrives with an established fan base built over several decades of games, while the other depends on critical goodwill and the draw of a respected lead. What tends to decide these contests is not the size of the opening but the slope afterwards. A family-oriented release can sustain itself across weeks, while an adult title relies on a narrower audience arriving fast and telling friends. Reviews matter enormously in that second case. So does the promise of something unusual. Viewers increasingly reward films that feel unlike the rest of the schedule, and a dark, strange fairy tale offers exactly that. The final numbers will not settle the argument about which film is better, but they will show that familiarity is not the only currency in a crowded marketplace.
After two weekends as the box office bridesmaid, the film has now risen to the top of the box office charts andmade more than $60 million, despite not yet being released in most territories. But as the box office spotlight continues to shine on the most incredible non-fiction feature of the decade, other less-discussed films are also proving popular. On its second weekend,Wicker, the bonkers fairy tale based on the short storyThe Wicker HusbandbyUrsula Wills, has earned another $4.1 million after a$5.7 million opening gambit.
Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you handle pressure, people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive the trilogy, and probably headline it.
You are precision with a grudge. You don't posture, you don't escalate, and you don't warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are so careful never to be the reason you start.
You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about: the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and you'd drive through a building for any one of them.
You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself anyway. It looks like control, but it's really responsibility. You have never worked out how to ask somebody else to carry the risk.
You are not the most trained person in the building, the best equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.
This takesWicker's global total to $13.4 million, although this is without accounting for its opening haul in the UK. At the U.S. box office, the film finished fourth in the ranks, rising from fifth last weekend and only facing a 28% drop, which is hugely impressive. This was a better weekend haul thandirectorKitao Sakurai's live-actionStreet Fightermovie, which continues to tumble down the box office charts after a positive opening weekend that has been upended by poor reviews.
How Did Critics React to 'Wicker'?
Not only is it a quiet box office hit, butWickeris one of the best-reviewed movies in theaters right now. Collider'sTherese Lacsoncalled it "an immensely entertaining watch" and "a fun and quirky story about love and overcoming loneliness"in her review, one of many glowing responses that have helped it reach a 94% average score on Rotten Tomatoes. Written and directed byAlex Huston FischerandEleanor Wilson, the film stars Academy Award winnerOlivia Colman,Succession'sAlexander Skarsgård,Peter Dinklage, andElizabeth Debicki. A synopsis reads:
"On the outskirts of a village by the sea, lives a Fisherwoman; smelly, single and perpetually ridiculed. One day, fed up with her stuffy, small-minded neighbors, she commissions herself a husband to be made from wicker. In an otherwise conservative town, this unconventional romance sparks outrage, jealousy and chaos."
Stay tuned to Collider for the latest box office news.
