Practical Magic 2 has finally ended the incredible number-one run of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Guy T. Wehman, Allison Rose, and Stephen Leibowitz open this week's FlickRadio with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman's long-awaited sequel taking first place with a $30 million domestic weekend and approximately $56 million worldwide.
Stephen gets to play the tape after correctly predicting last week that Practical Magic 2 would take the top spot. The team discusses the drawing power of Bullock and Kidman, the sequel's reported $75 million budget, and whether its opening will translate into a profitable theatrical run.
Don't shed too many tears for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. After dominating the box office for weeks, the superhero blockbuster has reached approximately $2.5 billion worldwide. The Odyssey also remains remarkably strong, holding third place despite playing in fewer than 2,000 theaters.
Elsewhere at the box office, Allison and Stephen discuss Runner, Coyote vs. Acme, Buddy, Insidious: Out of the Further, The Uprising, and By Any Means. Horror continues to demonstrate why modest production budgets can produce enormous returns, with Buddy and the Insidious franchise providing two very different examples.
Stephen also looks at Hope, a South Korean creature feature with an unusually long runtime for a monster movie. The ambitious film offers something different for adventurous genre fans, but Stephen questions whether two and a half hours is simply too much for this particular story.
Then it's time for one of this week's biggest releases: Resident Evil. The video game franchise receives another cinematic reboot, this time from Barbarian and Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger. Allison may not be the target audience, but she praises Cregger's execution, while Stephen finds plenty to love in the survival-horror approach.
The new Resident Evil doesn't simply retell one of the games. Instead, an ordinary medical courier named Brian finds himself trapped in Raccoon City as everything falls apart around him. Stephen praises the first-person perspective, creative monsters, jump scares, relentless tension, and Austin Abrams' performance as an everyman caught in a nightmare beyond his control. Both critics expect horror and video game fans to turn out for the film.
For moviegoers looking for something more dramatic, Allison reviews The Weight, starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe. Set during the Great Depression, the action-adventure drama follows a desperate man trying to save his family by transporting gold across dangerous territory. Allison highlights Hawke's performance and believes the film could enter the upcoming awards conversation.
Stephen tackles the dark comedy Bad Apples, starring Saoirse Ronan as a primary school teacher whose methods for dealing with her students take the story into increasingly uncomfortable territory. Stephen praises Ronan but finds that the film struggles with one of cinema's trickiest balancing acts: making genuinely dark material consistently funny.
Allison rounds out the new releases with two lighter choices. Tiny Figures follows a group of kids determined to remain at sleepaway camp rather than return to ordinary life, putting them into conflict with a camp employee played by Johnny Knoxville. She also highlights Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom for audiences who enjoy stop-motion animation and the style associated with Wallace & Gromit.
The episode closes with Classic Picks of the Week. Stephen's Bad Apples discussion sends him back to Disney's 1975 comedy The Apple Dumpling Gang, starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Allison marks the anniversary of the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction, while Guy stays in 1987 with Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner and Sean Connery with an acclaimed score by Ennio Morricone.
Episode Chapters
00:00 - Welcome to FlickRadio00:49 - Practical Magic 2 Takes #1 & the Weekend Box Office04:52 - Hope & the Horror Box Office05:41 - Resident Evil Review & #1 Prediction08:32 - The Weight, Bad Apples, Tiny Figures & Shaun the Sheep11:56 - Classic Picks: The Apple Dumpling Gang, Fatal Attraction & The UntouchablesSave on Movies with FlickDirect Movie Deals
Looking for a better price on movies and home entertainment? FlickDirect Movie Deals tracks discounts on movies, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, box sets, collector's editions, and more, so you can find worthwhile deals without hunting across the web.
Browse the latest Movie Deals:
Get the Movie Deals app for iPhone:
Download Movie Deals on the App Store
Hosted by Guy T. Wehman with critics Allison Rose and Stephen Leibowitz.
Subscribe to FlickRadio for weekly movie news, reviews, box office analysis, and classic film recommendations.