It was not a good weekend for Men in Black 4, as the Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson led sequel/reboot was appropriately attired for its own box-office funeral, coming in below studio estimates of $30 million, and taking $28.5 million off of a $110 million budget.
This leaves Hemsworth still without a real hit movie outside of the Marvel universe, even while headlining an existing property. Expect his stock to fall considerably, unless the much-mooted Hulk Hogan biopic he's slated to headline gets some awards recognition.
It did take $102 globally, which should see it break even if it holds steady over the coming weeks.
Elsewhere the Shaft sequel you didn't know about also opened and bombed even harder; taking an extremely weak $8.3 million for its first three days of release. Warner Bros. sold the global rights to Netflix, which means no cinema release this side of the pond.
Sequelitis can be tough on franchises when the quality isn't there - as Dark Phoenix found out last week. When the quality is consistent or improves you get John Wick 3 or Deadpool 2 - similar or far better grosses. We should see further indication of this when Toy Story 4 opens to possible record numbers next week.
