Box Office: ‘American Sniper’ Sets Its Sights On Super Bowl Record
American Sniper is looking to make box office history during Super Bowl weekend. According to the Hollywood Reporter, American Sniper is after the largest Super Bowl gross of all time. If the film can earn more than Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour film, which earned $31.1 million in 2008, then it will break yet another record.
The Clint Eastwood movie, starring Bradley Cooper as the late sniper Chris Kyle, has topped the box office at number 1 for three weeks since its January 16 release. So far, the film has grossed $177 million domestic.
On Friday, the movie didn’t show any signs of slowing down as it pulled in an additional $10 million, bringing its total to $227 million worldwide. As of right now, its current projection is that it will make a total of $32 million this weekend, which would put it a hair ahead of the Miley Cyrus film.
One reason why it’s not slowing down is because of all the controversy surrounding it. Michael Moore is just one public figure who has criticized the film about the glorification of killing. Kevin Costner and Dean Cain have spoken out against Moore, and because of this, the conversation has turned into a debate about the film’s intentions and the message it’s putting forth about the Iraq war.
Additionally, the film has been criticized for not showing more of Kyle’s PTSD.
However, not everyone feels this way about the movie, and that includes former sniper Cody McGregor, who told PBS, “I think it does a tremendous job and it resonates with not only veterans, but civilians, because it shows the battle that we incur in camouflage and the battle that we incur in civilian clothes when we come home.”
David Edelstein, of New York Magazine, argued that Eastwood’s scope on Kyle is extremely limited.
“Clint Eastwood looks at this character, Chris Kyle, in a vacuum, in a way that I think does a profound disservice to the men who died over there.”
He continued, “The film presents the Iraq War as a natural outgrowth of the attack on 9/11. Chris Kyle sees footage of the Twin Towers fall. He gets married very quickly. And the next thing you know, he is in Iraq. And there’s no indication by the film that those two things, 9/11 and Iraq, are not connected. There’s no historical context whatsoever to the movie.”
No matter what side of the argument you’re on, you can’t deny that Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood have a hit on their hands, one that not even the Super Bowl can stop.
[Image via Warner Bros]
