‘Civil War’

Courtesy of A24

Alex Garland‘s dystopian action movie Civil War found plenty of ammo at the Friday box office, earning a huge $10.8 million for a better-than-expected weekend opening of $25 million plus in North America. The movie will easily place No. 1.

The $50 million movie about a divided America is a big swing for A24 as it tries to produce bigger movies, marking its most expensive production to date.

There are clearly split feelings about the film. Moviegoers only bestowed it with a B- CinemaScore, while PostTrack exits were mixed. Overall, more than a third of the audience was male. Imax runs are a boon for the movie and are turning in 48 percent of the gross.

The story follows a wartime photojournalist (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleagues as they make their way across a hostile United States of America that has been torn apart under the authoritarian rule of a three-term president (Nick Offerman).

Yet the film shies away from red state/blue state divisions, and the politics behind the conflict are generally left unexplained, other than to say that one of the president’s first actions was to disband the FBI in an apparent nod to former President Donald Trump, who has called to “defund” the Bureau.

Interestingly, the movie played best in the South and South Central regions of the country.

Civil War‘s timing surely isn’t a coincidence as it hits cinemas amid a contentious election year in which President Biden and former President Trump are once again the leading candidates for their respective parties as Trump seeks to return to the White House

At a SXSW panel following the film’s premiere, Garland said it made sense to release Civil War now, although it’s not as if there is anything new about the contentious political discourse gripping the country.