End of a franchise.
Inferno, the third installment of the franchise based on the books by Dan Brown, starring Tom Hanks and is gasping in the box office at the weekend with earnings as low as $15 million.
The previous installment of the franchise, Angels & Demons, had a better performance with $46.2 million while The Da Vinci Code earned $77.1 million in 2006.
Reuters reported that Lionsgate’s Boo! A Madea Halloween topped the domestic box office chart for the second consecutive week earning $16.7 million to reach its stateside total to $52 million. Inferno failed to attract audience though it was expected to enter the north with $20 million, with which the film could have reached the first place.
“This was a serious meltdown,” Jeff Bock, box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations told Reuters. “It shows how fickle audiences can be. When studios release a sequel they don’t want, they just turn their shoulder,” he added.
Struggling with amnesia, symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) teams up with doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) and race across Europe to stop a madman (Ben Foster) from unleashing a virus that could wipe out half of the world’s population. The films also stars Indian actor Irrfan Khan. Failing to appeal the audience, the film has got disheartening reviews too. The 20 percent rating on critics’ aggregator Rotten Tomatoes shows the desperate performance of the movie.
“Ron Howard’s latest rendering of a Dan Brown book, takes the hotcake for febrile chases and an overheated stew of prophecies, visions, omens and revelations garnished with indigestible gobs of arcane info,” said the review of Wall Street Journal.
The movie was expected to make a better result. But, a World Series match between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians attracted the public attention this weekend. The long gap of seven years after the release of Angels and Demons is also cited as a reason for its flame out.
Though the movie hasn’t performed well in the domestic market, the overseas collection may be a relief to Sony Pictures. The $75 million budget movie has garnered about $150 million overseas.
“Globally, the movie is in really good shape,” Rory Bruer, Sony’s worldwide distribution chief was quoted as saying by Reuters. “We made this film for much less and we felt strongly that it was a film that would resonate internationally,” Bruer added.