Blacklight

Title: Blacklight
Directed By: Mark Williams
Written By: Nick May, Mark Williams, Story by Brandon Reavis and Nick May
Release Date: February 11, 2022
Domestic Distributor: Briarcliff Entertainment
Cast: Liam Neeson, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Taylor John Smith
Rated: PG-13 for strong violence, action and language.
Genre: Action/Thriller 

Box Office Information

• Budget:  $43,000,000
• Financed by: Briarcliff Entertainment, The Solution Entertainment Group, Sina Studios, Zero Gravity Management, Footloose Productions, Fourstar Films, Elevate Production Finance
• Domestic Box Office Gross: $9,591,094
• Overseas Box Office Gross: $3,626,944

Official Trailer

Synopsis

Are you familiar with the old saying “Something got lost in the translation”? Well, the plot of this movie in English is such a meaningless farrago that we thought we’d put it in Norwegian to see if it makes more sense. Here goes:

“Travis Block lever og kjemper i skyggene. Block er en frilans-regjerings-“fikser”, en farlig mann hvis oppdrag har inkludert å trekke agenter ut av dyp-cover-situasjoner. Når Block oppdager at et skyggefullt program kalt Operation Unity slår ned vanlige borgere av årsaker som bare Blocks sjef, FBI-sjef Robinson kjenner til, får han hjelp av en journalist, men hans fortid og nåtid kolliderer når datteren og barnebarnet hans blir truet. Nå må Block redde menneskene han elsker og avsløre sannheten for et forsøk på forløsning. Ingenting og ingen er trygge når hemmeligheter er skjult i Blacklight.”

Nope. That didn’t seem to work, either.

Maybe the problem is that the whole federal agent/federal agency bit has been not only worked to death, but then revived by necromancers as zombie scenarios and then killed again with a silver bullet and once more revived by a mutant virus to wander the cinema landscape as a soulless, witless thing until someone puts a wooden stake through its heart and stuffs its mouth full of garlic.

C’mon, just exactly how many roving agents does the U.S. federal government have? If you believe the movies (which you should most certainly do, since the movies teach us what is true and what is false) there are thousands of men and women from the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, IRS, and heaven only knows how many other agencies restlessly patrolling the American landscape, wearing cool shades, dressed in black, and winkling out terrorists everywhere from the local car wash to J.C. Penneys at the mall. 

It was a happy day for discerning audiences when Hollywood finally gave up on Westerns – or so it seemed. They still make ‘em from time to time, but they are few and far between. So the pressing question here is when will Hollywood finally bury the government agent plotline and give audiences some relief. 

The answer, sadly, is probably never.

A person with a gun and a stunning wardrobe, who has the entire might of the United States backing them up, is such an appealing daydream for most Americans that the trope cannot be killed off without serious psychological repercussions to the American psyche.

After all, most of us bumble along through life working for bosses that barely tolerate us, doing work that bores us to distraction, and have home lives that have more dirty dishes than dirty dancing. Who doesn’t dream of going into the Man’s office some day and coolly arresting him for being Ali Babba the Terrorist in disguise all these years? Or swinging from a rope out of a flying helicopter and tossing grenades at ill-shaven ruffians below. 

Besides, if we did manage to get rid of all these super agents like James Bond et al, just think what would rush in to fill the vacuum – MORE COP MOVIES!!!

Furthermore . . .

Oh wait, there’s someone at the door. Hello? Yes? You’ve come to take me away? To where? Guantanamo? What for? Treason against the CIA, FBI, IRS, and J.C. Penneys? Yikes! 

Somebody call Tom Cruise to get me out of this!

Box Office Numbers

With a production budget of $43,000,000, a worldwide box office 0.3 times the production budget, Blacklight took &9,591,094 domestically and grossed $3,626,944 overseas at the box office.

Blacklight played to 2772 theaters and took $3,502,475 (36.5%of total gross) in its opening weekend.

The film played to a total of 2772 theaters domestically and took a domestic share of some 72.6%.

Having ranked 5th in its opening weekend, Blacklight plummeted to 10th in its second weekend – running for a total of 6 weeks, with an average weekend domestic gross of $1150 per theater based on a 3 weeks average run per theater.

Blacklight  was released to a total of 9 countries internationally, with the main markets being Mexico with a lifetime gross of $1,293,882, the Netherlands, with a lifetime gross of $1,231,835, and Australia, lifetime gross of $556,028.