A Russell Crowe Movie You Haven't Heard Of Made The Top 10 At The Box Office

Russell Crowe is a beloved Oscar-winning actor with movies like "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind" under his belt. But recently he's entered a different phase of his career where he appears to simply be having fun, with "Unhinged" and "The Pope's Exorcist" ranking as some of his recent credits. Now, he's got a brand-new action movie called "Land of Bad" in theaters that seems to have slipped under the radar. Nonetheless, it still managed to crack the top ten at the box office over the weekend. That's the power of Crowe and not one but two Hemsworth brothers.

Director William Eubank's "Land of Bad" pulled in $1.8 million over the weekend from just over 1,100 screens, giving it a respectable per-screen average of more than $1,600. It edged out "Mean Girls" ($1.1 million) to take the No. 10 spot. Is that enough to break even? No, not really, but for its distributor The Avenue, it's enough to get the movie on the radar, and theaters were surely happy to sell those tickets. Not to belabor the point, but 2024 has been rough at the box office thus far. Anything helps at this point.

Written by David Frigerio, the movie centers on an elite extraction team that is ambushed while deep in enemy territory. Rookie officer Kinney (Liam Hemsworth) is left outnumbered but determined to leave no man behind. With an air strike closing in, his only hope is the guidance of an Air Force drone pilot named Reaper (Crowe). The cast also includes Luke Hemsworth, of "Westworld" fame, making this a bit of a family affair. Who knows? If this somehow gets a sequel maybe they can talk Chris Hemsworth into joining in on the fun — but probably not.

This isn't exactly the sort of movie that was expected to do big numbers. It comes from a small distributor and was made on a sub-$20 million budget. It was most likely made with VOD, streaming, and the DVD market in mind. Yes, surprisingly, thanks to Redbox and other avenues, physical media can still provide a financial boost to these smaller action films with star power. In any event, that's why "Land of Bad" probably flew under just about everyone's radar. There was no major marketing campaign to speak of, but it seems to be finding its audience.

With that, Crowe has become something of an off-key box office hero in recent years. "Unhinged" was one of the very first new movies to open wide in the aftermath of the pandemic and helped to get theaters back on their feet after a majorly difficult period. Last year's "The Pope's Exorcist" was also an unexpected hit, as it not only did well in theaters but topped the charts on Netflix as well. It's also getting a sequel, birthing a new horror franchise.

So sure, maybe Crowe's days of leading classy, Best Picture-winning movies are behind him. Maybe he'll have some sort of late-career resurgence. Whatever the case, for the time being, he's still very relevant, doing his thing in blue-collar movies.

"Land of Bad" is in theaters now.