Box Office: 'A Working Man' Debuts With $30 Million Worldwide
The latest David Ayer-directed R-rated actioner opened close to 'The Beekeeper' and (noting inflation) on par with Jason Statham's 2000s and 2010s star vehicles.
The one constant through all the years has been Jason Statham. The star system has been erased by a blackboard, still waiting to be rebuilt or erased again. For the last 25 years, there was one thing America could count on. Jason Statham was always there, making the kind of non-franchise, R-rated, reasonably-budgeted pulpy actioners that otherwise threatened to go extinct. In the 2010s, with Hollywood gripped in a relentless pursuit of all-quadrant fantasy franchise global box office riches and post-Columbine desire to squeeze every kind of movie into the PG-13 box and now as the studio programmer and mid-budget drama have long given way to IP-driven mega-budget fantasy franchises and nostalgia-charged attempts to turn one-and-done blockbusters into brands. But Jason Statham has marked the time. When Jason Statham would arrive, full of righteous indignation and relatively justifiable violence, people would come.
(cue James Horner’s “The Place Where Dreams Come True”)
This weekend, with Jason Statham suiting up to deliver more righteous anger and/or furious vengeance, people most definitely came. They came to A Working Man, which again stars the former Olympic diver in a David Ayer-directed and Amazon MGM Studios-distributed, R-rated solo action vehicle. It’s only around $11 per person. They passed over their $11 without even thinking about it. For it was money they had, and a Sylvester Stallone-penned adaptation of Chuck Dixon’s Logan’s Trade they lacked. They found some reserved, reclinable seats somewhere in the middle of the middle. And they watched the carnage, and it was as if they dipped themselves in magic collectible popcorn buckets. This actor, his movies, they are a part of our past. He reminds us of all that once was good about Hollywood, and it could be again. Oh, people came. People most definitely came.