The latest chapter in the growing directory of Abu Dhabi's cinema appearances landed on screens across the UAE last weekend, when The Misfits, starring Pierce Brosnan and Tim Roth, was released.
The movie was directed by Renny Harlin, who helmed Die Hard 2, and also features local and regional talent, including Emirati favourite Mansour Alfeeli and Finnish-Palestinian rally driver-turned-actor Rami Jaber. Jaber also executive produces and came up with the plot for the movie, which was shot extensively across Abu Dhabi in 2019. The film lines up alongside other Abu Dhabi-shot blockbusters such as instalments in the Mission: Impossible and Star Wars franchises, and Bollywood hits Dishoom and Tiger Zinda Hai, to name a few.
Fast & Furious 7, which also included scenes shot in the UAE capital, springs to mind when comparing this new film, with its rally-driving co-star and creator, and a plotline concerning a band of loveable rogues committing crimes, Robin Hood-style, for all the right reasons. But did the newcomer compete as well at the box office?
Even with Harlin, Roth and Brosnan on board, it's perhaps unreasonable to ask The Misfits to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Fast & Furious 7 at the box office. The latter banked more than $1.5 billion at the global box office and was the fourth-highest-grossing film in history on its release in 2015. The franchise itself is the seventh highest-grossing film series, while fellow Abu Dhabi alum Star Wars (parts of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was shot in the UAE) ranks second in the list, and Mission: Impossible sits at a respectable 16th.
In short, The Misfits didn't compete with these films on its opening weekend, but it certainly held its own. The three-day figures for the opening weekend of last Thursday to Saturday show that the film reached fifth place at the UAE box office, with 13,482 admissions at the weekend.
The weekend box office was topped by another new release, The Boss Baby: Family Business, with 29,913 admissions. The Forever Purge sneaked into the fourth spot by less than 300 paying customers, while second and third places went to the Arabic hit Mesh Ana and Pixar animation Luca, in their second and third week in cinemas respectively.
While the UAE records its box office by admissions rather than US dollar gross, the weekend haul translates to about $147,000 (assuming a Dh40 average ticket price). That's already more than almost every other territory where the film has released so far. In South Korea, where it had its global premiere and opened on June 3, it has so far grossed a total of $8,463, according to Box Office Mojo. In South Africa, where it opened on June 11, it has so far pulled in $54,454, while in Ukraine it has grossed $82,513 since its June 17 release. Only Russia has so far outperformed the UAE at the box office with a $557,600 haul since its June 9 opening.
The Misfits did not achieve a wide cinema release in the US, but instead went straight to video on demand at the end of June, and audiences seemed to lap it up. With a $6.99 price tag, the film spent much of the last two weeks of June as the top-selling non-premium VoD title on iTunes and also topped the non-premium charts at both FandangoNow and Vudu.
Financial figures are not yet available for these VoD successes, but a fairly healthy return seems assured, and with a range of releases across Europe and Australia already confirmed for the remainder of July and August, it looks like it should certainly keep clocking up the pennies as cinemas spring back to life.