Netflix Officially Breaks Tradition With New War Movie’s Box Office Debut

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema. 

It’s an important time for the Skarsgård family. Both Alexander Skarsgård and his younger brother,Gustaf Skarsgård, have new movies currently playing in theaters. Meanwhile, their other sibling, Bill Skarsgård, can be seen in a hit Netflix film that was released only a few weeks ago. While the oldest of these three brothers, Alexander, stars in the word-of-mouth hit romance fantasy film Wicker, the youngest, Bill, appears as part of an exciting ensemble in a World War II action film that marks something of a new era for Netflix. It’s only the streamer’s second major release this year to get a theatrical run, following La Bola Negra. In anticipation of major upcoming theatrical titles, Netflix is breaking tradition by formally reporting box-office figures for the first time.

While La Bola Negra has done very well in limited release, Netflix’s new WWII movie has had a softer debut. It was released in roughly 350 theaters this past week, while La Bola Negra expanded into 38 theaters and delivered nearly the same haul. The Spanish-language Oscar contender opened in four locations two weeks ago, as Netflix attempts to give it an old-fashioned platform rollout leading into awards season. Envisioned as an awards contender as well, the WWII movie hasn’t exactly received high praise from critics. In her review, Collider’s Maggie Lovitt described it as “an exceedingly by-the-books film that adds very little new to the canon of war epics.”

Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble.
This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to,
because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room
without you ever having to mention it.

• Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the
  backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
• You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you
  have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
• The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the
  moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
• You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.

You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal
person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two
things were in any tension.

• Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it,
  which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
• You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the
  handful of people you actually care about.
• Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep
  getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
• You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.

You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the
alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most
Western reason there has ever been.

• Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left
  alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
• You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who
  is exposed rather than who is to blame.
• These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the
  person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
• You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.

Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had
already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

• Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through
  argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
• You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you
  turn up exactly when you said you would.
• True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen
  and every adult around her has to catch up.
• You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of
  you.

Here’s How Much the WWII Movie Grossed at the Box Office

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

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Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

We’re talking, of course, about The Mosquito Bowl, directed by Peter Berg. The movie grossed $455,000 in its box-office debut, which represents a per-theater average of around $1,300. By comparison, La Bola Negra grossed $418,000 from just 38 theaters, as its running domestic haul passed the $1 million mark. The Mosquito Bowl currently holds a 39% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, but its 92% audience score on the aggregator website bodes well for its eventual release on Netflix. The movie will land on the streamer on November 25, just two days after Netflix debuts The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth in IMAX theaters for two weeks. Next year, the streamer has two major theatrical titles lined up — Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory.

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

The Mosquito Bowl

In this World War II sports drama based on Buzz Bissinger’s nonfiction book, four celebrated college football players put their athletic careers aside to join the U.S. Marines after the events at Pearl Harbor, eventually taking part in a legendary football game on Guadalcanal before facing the brutal Battle of Okinawa.