Logan Lucky, despite good reviews, flops

Logan Lucky poster

Logan Lucky, the heist movie with Daniel Craig in a key role, flopped its opening weekend in the U.S. despite favorable reviews.

The Steven Soderbergh-directed film generated $8 million at more than 3,000 screens, according to Exhibitors Relations, which compiles box office data.

The No. 1 movie for the weekend was The Hitman’s Bodyguard at an estimated $21.6 million, Exhibitors Relation said in a separate Twitter post.

Logan Lucky is an ensemble movie, with Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and Katie Holmes among the cast. Craig got an in-joke billing, “Introducing Daniel Craig as Joe Bang.”

The movie got a 93 percent “fresh” rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website that compiles reviews. Craig was among those praised by critics.

For example, Anthony Lane of The New Yorker described Craig as being “on a hollering vacation from his stern-visaged duties as James Bond, that his mood exalts the whole enterprise.”

Another critic, Adam Graham of The Detroit News, wrote that Craig was the main asset of the film.

“Craig is usually so stoic on screen — has his James Bond ever smiled? — that you forget that Craig has any sort of charisma behind his perma-scowl, but here he’s having so much fun that he casually makes off with the movie,” Graham wrote.

Logan Lucky, of course, was the movie Craig was promoting last week when he announced he’d play 007 again in Bond 25. On Aug. 15, he told radio stations no decisions had been made but then said he was returning as Bond on CBS’s The Late Show.

Meanwhile, Logan Lucky will probably do OK financially. Its budget was only a reported $30 million and “was financed via foreign advances and presales,” according to Scott Mendelson of Forbes.com,