Entertainment
Matt Damon’s Medical Thriller Loses Box Office Rank to New ‘Predator’ Hit
Having firmly established itself among the 200 highest-grossing science-fiction movies in global box office history, Predator: Badlands is continuing its surprisingly robust theatrical run after exceeding expectations in its debut frame. The movie has already become the highest-grossing installment of the Predator franchise, and has now passed the coveted $100 million mark at the global box office. Its latest achievement, however, is overtaking one of the most resonant science-fiction movies of recent times; a movie whose unconventionally grounded approach set it apart from the more fantastical trappings of the genre.
With just under $70 million domestically and another $70 million from overseas markets, Predator: Badlands has grossed a combined total of $138 million worldwide. This puts it ahead of the $137 million that director Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion concluded its run with back in 2011. Headlined by Matt Damon, the movie serves as an interesting companion piece to Kathryn Bigelow‘s recent thriller A House of Dynamite, in that it presents a doomsday scenario and speculates how prepared governments are to respond to it. However, unlike A House of Dynamite‘s nuclear attack premise, Contagion revolved around the spread of a deadly virus and followed an ensemble of characters navigating it.
Soderbergh’s economic direction explored misinformation, corruption, corporate malpractice, and fearmongering through an eclectic cast of characters, including Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, and Marion Cotillard. Contagion was written by Scott Z. Burns, who collaborated with Soderbergh on the movies Side Effects, The Laundromat, and The Informant!. Produced on a reported budget of $60 million, the movie earned positive reviews. It’s now sitting at a “certified fresh” 85% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Tense, tightly plotted, and bolstered by a stellar cast, Contagion is an exceptionally smart — and scary — disaster movie.”
‘Predator: Badlands’ Has Been Hailed by Audiences and Critics
Predator: Badlands, on the other hand, cost a reported $105 million to produce. The movie is directed by Dan Trachtenberg, whose previous work in the franchise includes the critically acclaimed franchise films Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers. Like those movies, Predator: Badlands also opened to positive reviews, and is now sitting at an 86% critics’ score and a 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch the movie in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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September 8, 2011
- Runtime
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106 minutes
- Director
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Steven Soderbergh
- Writers
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Scott Z. Burns
