Surprise, Surprise: The “Ben-Hur” Remake That Nobody Asked For Is A Box Office Bomb

“Note to self: Fire my managers, agents and anyone else who thought doing this shit show of biblical proportions was a good idea.” – Morgan Freeman in that picture. It looks like his horse is thinking the same thing too.

Pretty much nobody thought to themselves “#ImWithHur” and acted upon it this past weekend, because it totally flopped at the domestic box office. Deadline reports that Ben-Hur got pounded by Sausage Party, Suicide Squad and War Dogs. (That sounds like the most messed-up orgy ever.) Ben-Hur brought in a whopping $11 million, which is nearly 1/10th of the $100 million it cost to make. Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who already made a lot of money off of the Bible, produced this wreck, so I have a feeling that the next time they pray to Jesus, they’re going to be hit with an error 404, because he just can’t with them right now.

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The Huntsman: Spring’s Flop

There’s this tiny little movie that’s just come out, you probably haven’t even heard of it or seen any ads for it. No, sorry. I meant the opposite of that. The Huntsman: Winter’s War finally came out this weekend and has been assaulting us from every angle for what feels like ages now. It’s like everywhere I turn there’s a picture or video of Charlize Theron in that gold medieval drag get up. Well, the joke’s on Universal because this all out attack on our eyes, ears and nerves backfired. The Hunstman flopped this weekend.

The sans Kristen Stewart prequel/sequel/whocaresquel has a grade A Hollywood star cast – Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain – but that wasn’t enough to get American butts into American movie theater seats, reports the Hollywood Reporter. Emphasis on the American because it’s made a little over $80 million overseas in the past two weeks. But it brought in only $20 million here on its opening weekend. The first movie opened with $56 million here in the States and went on to make over $396 million worldwide.

This second mess cost $115 million to make and it’ll make that back, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for another one of these. Please God, don’t let them make another one of these, there is only so much we can take of Charlize’s wreck of an accent. People chose to see the new Jungle Book over the adult version of Frozen in a very big way because it continued to destroy everything else in theaters, making another $60 million. Poor Chris Hemsworth, nothing but the Thor movies seem to work for him. But he’s making unfathomable amounts of money from those and probably from this, so, no, actually I don’t care. Those Marvel hoes will never get any pity from me!

The weekend’s top five movies were:

1. The Jungle Book – $60.8 million

2. The Huntsman: Winter’s War – $20 million

3. Barbershop: The Next Cut – $10.9 million

4. Zootopia – $6.6 million

5. The Boss – $6.1 million

Pic: Universal