Eternals tops North American box office with $96m despite bad reviews
LOS ANGELES: Eternals soared to the top of the North American weekend box-office chart, buoyed by mania for all things Marvel.
But its US$71 million (S$96 million) debut fell just short of projections, which had the superhero film debuting to US$75 million.
That is a sign, perhaps, that the iffy reviews muted Eternals' results or a signal that the underlying intellectual property didn't have the resonance of other comic book adaptations.
Led by Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden and Gemma Chan, it tells the tale of an immortal race of god-like extraterrestrials who emerge from several millennia in hiding to save the Earth from the evil Deviants.
Currently showing in cinemas here, Eternals still managed to score the fourth-best opening weekend for any movie during the pandemic era, sliding in behind Marvel's own Black Widow (US$80.3 million) and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (US$75.3 million) as well as Venom: Let There Be Carnage (US$90 million), which was made by Sony but based on a Marvel comic creation.
Internationally, it took in US$90.7 million, bringing its global haul to US$161.7 million.
Eternals is written and directed by Chloe Zhao, fresh off the Oscar-winning Nomadland, but reviewers griped that the film is long on exposition and light on entertainment.
It has the ignominious distinction of being the only Marvel movie to draw a "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with only 48 per cent of reviews marked as positive, although the audience score is a more encouraging 81 per cent. - REUTERS
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now