A Big Fantasy Movie From The Director Of Resident Evil Just Bombed At The Box Office
It was a rough weekend at the box office. A slew of smaller releases tried to drum up some business as Warner Bros. finally unveiled director Bong Joon Ho's "Mickey 17," which disappointed greatly with a $19 million debut. That was still good enough to top the charts, which says a lot about just how poorly the weekend went. To further illustrate just how bad it was, another flop sort of flew under the radar in the form of "In the Lost Lands." One would be forgiven for not knowing this movie even exists but, nonetheless, its investors are undoubtedly unhappy.
Based on "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin's short story of the same name, "In the Lost Lands" opened to just over $1 million on 1,370 screens. That made for a truly lousy $761 per-screen average. This one is DOA, despite having an awful lot of talent involved. To make matters worse, it carries a reported production budget of $55 million. So, unless this thing takes off overseas or becomes a VOD juggernaut, it's not looking good, to put it lightly.
"In the Lost Lands" was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who turned "Resident Evil" into a successful franchise 23 years ago. But that was then and this is now. Despite the film starring Milla Jovovich and boasting additional star power in the form of Dave Bautista ("Guardians of the Galaxy," "Dune"), audiences simply didn't turn up for this one. Barring some sort of turnaround or tricky accounting I'm unaware of, this is a full-blown disaster on paper.
Just about everything went wrong with In the Lost Lands
"In the Lost Lands" centers on a queen who sends the powerful and feared sorceress Gray Alys (Jovovich) to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands in search of a magical power. Once there, the sorceress and her guide, a drifter named Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight both men and demons to accomplish their quest.
Critics were sour on the film, as it earned pretty bad reviews and currently only has a 26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. For what it's worth, fantasy is a tough sell in the best cases, with the multi-billion-dollar "The Lord of the Rings" franchise being the exception and not the rule. Even with Martin's good name attached, this one just didn't get the job done. In theory, given the source material and talent involved, it's not impossible to understand how this one got funded. In the pre-pandemic world, maybe this would have made sense.
This all adds to an already rough beginning to 2025 at the box office overall. The year's biggest hit is the $2 billion animated juggernaut that is "Ne Zha 2," which has made almost all of its money in China. That's good for the global theatrical marketplace, but it hasn't done much for theaters in North America. After 2024 got off to a bumpy start, the hope was that 2025 would bring more consistently green pastures. So far, though, that hasn't panned out. Even Marvel's "Captain America: Brave New World" has yet to clear $400 million worldwide.
Here's hoping for a blockbuster summer, because stuff like this isn't going to cut it.
"In the Lost Lands" is now playing in theaters.