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Gran Turismo ruled the box office over the weekend with just $17.3 million. It’s worth noting that Sunday was $4 movie day in the US, which must have affected sales. We saw Gran Turismo on Saturday, which I assumed was $4 movie day. (I don’t know how I screwed that up, but at least the theater wasn’t packed.) I truly loved that film. If you like cheesy over-the-top action movies I think you’ll enjoy it too. I learned a lot about car racing and was thoroughly entertained. It was super heavy handed at times, but it delivered and had so much heart. You can see this in the Rotten Tomatoes score. Audiences gave it 98% but critics rated it just 61%. Here’s more on Gran Turismo’s box office. It finally beat Barbie.

Sony’s late-summer event pic Gran Turismo declared victory at the weekend box office race with a $17.3 million domestic opening, a somewhat muted start for a movie based on a popular video game. The hope now is that an A CinemaScore from audiences will provide a turbo boost in the days to come.

Directed by Neill Blomkamp, the racing pic had been set to launch nationwide on Aug. 11 but switched gears because of the actors strike and the resulting prohibition on the cast — led by Orlando Bloom and David Harbour — doing any press. The studio instead hosted two weekends of sneaks and a handful of fan screenings to build buzz before opening the movie everywhere on Aug. 25.

The opening number includes a hefty $3.9 million in grosses from those previous sneaks. It’s hardly the first time that a Hollywood studio has added such grosses to an opening weekend number, but the early Gran Turismo screenings were more robust than is the norm.

[From THR]

Many of you are going to roll your eyes at a video game movie, but it’s based on the true story of a gamer-turned-professional race car driver. It was just the type of movie I love seeing in the theater. When they showed the kid it was based on at the end the movie and all the small details from his life they wove in I lost it. It’s surprisingly directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium, both excellent scifi films) and it shows. Star Archie Madekwe, 28, was so good and it also stars David Harbour, Orlando Bloom and Djimon Hounsou.

I looked up how the true story of Jann Mardenborough differed from the movie. There are too many spoilers in that discussion so I’m not excerpting it. While they definitely took liberties with the timeline, a lot of the key plot points are true. Anyway I’m rooting for this movie to get a sequel so go see it if you like action films. This has been such a great summer for movies and if you haven’t seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem yet I highly recommend that one too.

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