It was a rough weekend at the box office for Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal. The actors received top billing in the action flick “In the Grey,” which has long been in the works. After months of sitting on the shelf, director Guy Ritchie’s latest finally hit theaters. Unfortunately, it had a muted debut, going down in flames for all involved.
“In the Grey” opened to $2.9 million domestically and $5.2 million internationally for a global opening just north of $8 million. For a movie with a budget reportedly between $40 and $60 million, that’s not great, to put it mildly. It’s more bad news for Black Bear, the distributor behind Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy,” which flopped at the box office last year in high-profile fashion. It’s also not going to do a lot for Cavill or Gyllenhaal in terms of their ability to draw a crowd as the heads of a movie in the 2020s.
The movie centers on a covert team of elite operatives who are sent to steal back a billion-dollar fortune. What begins as an impossible heist spirals into an all-out war. Eiza González (“Baby Driver”), Kristofer Hivju (“Game of Thrones”), Fisher Stevens (“Severance”), Rosamund Pike (“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t”), and Carlos Bardem (“30 Coins”) also star.
So, what went wrong, exactly? For one, audiences had a lot to choose from. “Michael” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2” are both crowd-pleasers that have over-performed. Curry Barker’s “Obsession” also had a stronger-than-expected opening. Even though the future of the franchise is up in the air, “Mortal Kombat II” is still out there as well. This one just couldn’t cut through the noise.
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In the Grey had all the makings of a good movie on paper
Jake Gyllenhaal as Bronco holding a bazooka in In the Grey – Black Bear
“In the Grey” has been received fairly well by audiences. It holds a 48% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes but a solid 83% audience score. It also earned a decent B CinemaScore. This one is bound to find life once it arrives on VOD/streaming, but it’s a swing and a miss so far as being a theatrical play is concerned.
It’s been a bit of a rough stretch for Guy Ritchie, who had three movies in a row bomb at the box office in a 13-month span from 2023 to 2024. “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” ($49 million worldwide/$50 million budget), “The Covenant” ($22 million worldwide/$55 million budget), and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” ($29 million worldwide/$60 million budget) all greatly disappointed. Interestingly enough, Jake Gyllenhaal starred in “The Covenant” and Henry Cavill led “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”
Ritchie has had an up-and-down career. He was behind “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” ($149 million worldwide/$175 million budget). It came out in 2017, which flopped harder than any other year in box office history. At the same time, he’s had hits like “Snatch” and the live-action “Aladdin” remake, which made $1 billion. But Hollywood has typically been a “what have you done for me lately?” town, and Ritchie could use a hit to help balance the scales once again.
Similarly, Cavill seems to keep getting the short end of the stick. He was a great Superman who never got a great “Superman” movie. Many of his movies have underperformed commercially. Cavill has immense movie star potential, but things seem to go wrong frequently. This sadly now gets added to the pile.
“In the Grey” is in theaters now.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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