Box Office: 'Den of Thieves 2' Nabs Solid $6M Friday But 'Better Man' Earns $580K
Gerard Butler remains a bankable movie star, but Robbie Williams is... not.
For those so inclined…
It may have started as a Den of Thieves (review), but it ended as a Cabin of Friends. No spoilers, but the real Den of Thieves was… yes… the friends we made along the way. Jokes aside, it’s refreshing to see Lionsgate’s seven-years-later follow-up to their early 2018 cult hit spawn—not quite a breakout sequel, but a respectable “stay the course” follow-up. Yes, Gerard Butler is still a movie star, and yes, the folks who discovered Den of Thieves over the last seven years have spread the gospel accordingly.
If Den of Thieves sold itself as a kind of grindhouse Heat, then this European-set follow-up is (I’m not the first person to say this) closer in spirit to Michael Mann’s Miami Vice movie. That’s a compliment on both ends. The first film was a worthwhile “rip-off, don’t remake” success in its own right, and Den of Thieves 2 arrives as a polished, cinematically scrumptious sequel that bucks the trend by being less dark and less grim than its more violent predecessor.
After a frankly miserable and embarrassing theatrical year (#justice4KillersGame), with just one $40 million-plus domestic earner (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, natch), Lionsgate’s #survivetill25 is off to a solid start. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (that’s Italian for “leopard,” and the most gratuitous sequel subtitle since John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) topped the domestic box office on Friday with $6 million.