by 
Updated on December 10, 2021
This week saw last week’s box office champ, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” fall to second place. The sequel earned $37.2 million for a total to date of $147.9 million domestically. Overseas, it’s raked in a huge amount of cash, earning $403 million to date. That should help make up for the sting of losing its top box office slot to “Neighbors,” an R-rated comedy showcasing Zac Efron (and his shirtlessness).
Meanwhile, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” soldiers on, coming in fifth place with $5.6 million, for a total of $245 million domestically and $450.6 million overseas. With a global total of $695.6 million and counting, the film’s clearly more beloved than last year’s “Man of Steel” (Rotten Tomatoes gives 89% “fresh” for “Soldier” and 56% for “Steel”), and unlike “Steel” didn’t have to compromise its characters’ natures or tone to do so. Not that Time-Warner’s apparently learned anything from their rival Disney’s success. Despite that the public clearly likes non-Batman superhero films with a more optimistic tone, they seem to feel the way to succeed “Avengers”-style with “Man of Steel 2” is keep the previous film’s same dismal tone, but load it with various JLAers (plus, as usual, their overreliance on Batman).
“Rio 2” came in sixth place, earning $5.1 million for a domestic total of $113.2 million and an international total of $309.5 million. “Rio 3” will surely be coming, a la the various “Ice Age” sequels.
Finally, this week also saw “Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return” open, which came in eighth place for a total of $3.7 million. While the film’s budget isn’t known (though Forbes claims it might’ve cost $70 million to produce), the TV trailers showcasing the animation quality suggest it didn’t cost very much to produce. I gather audiences felt the same way, thus giving the film its dismal opening. Between “Rio 2,” “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” (still lingering in a few theaters), the aforementioned superhero films, and the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” being available on DVD/Netflix, there’s not much reason for families to go see this film. As a few articles have suggested, families might also want to save their money for “Maleficent,” which opens in a few weeks.
Next week sees open the latest reboot of the “Godzilla” franchise, which so far sounds like it’ll be better received than the ill-fated 1990s reboot.
