Tavern Talk: Video Review - THE CALL OF THE WILD

The newly minted 20th Century Studios released their inaugural film with the Harrison Ford-starring remake of The Call of the Wild and while it was number one in our hearts at TAVERN TALK this week it couldn't manage enough moolah to be number one at the box office as Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog managed a second weekend at number one with $26.2 million, pushing the film's domestic cume past $106 million after just ten days in release. After only two weekends, Sonic already ranked as the fourth largest video game adaptation domestically of all-time and as of Monday it surpassed The Angry Birds Movie's $107.5 million to become the third largest earner in terms of that domestic video game adaptation stat. Internationally, Sonic added another $38.3 million, pushing its international cume to $96.5 million for a global tally that presently sits north of $216 million for the $95 million budgeted family flick. As for the weekend's biggest new release, The Call of the Wild finished in second place with $24.8 million, but with a reported production budget of $135 million (thanks, CGI Buck) and God knows how much more in marketing costs on top of that Disney and 20th Century Studios are going to need this one to have legs for days and for those Jack London Funko! collectibles and plush Bucks to sell like hot cakes-not to mention downloads of that Call of the Wild-themed video game for Nintendo Switch having to put up impressive numbers for all of this to pay off. I'm kidding, of course; a family-friendly re-telling of of the brutal, middle-school adventure story isn't exactly easy pickin' for cross promotional merchandise and yet...here we are. As of two days ago the film sat at $45.7 million worldwide with only $16 million coming from international markets. The issue is that The Call of the Wild tells a distinctly American story and while opening weekend audiences seemed to enjoy the film well enough (it earned an "A-" CinemaScore and a 90% audience score on RottenTomatoes) it's hard to imagine after the successful, but not necessarily justifiable opening weekend numbers that this will have the endurance to rationalize the amount of money the studio spent on this thing. The only other new, wide release last week was STX films and Lakeshore Entertainment's horror sequel Brahms: The Boy II which earned $5.8 million domestically and $2.22 million internationally for a global total just over $8 million which, while neither audiences nor critics were fans, isn't bad for a film that only cost $10 million to make. As always, be sure to follow the official TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find a new review (or reviews) each week!