SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU: after Saturday update. .A Nor-easter wasn’t enough to make a dent in the North American box office, which remained in high gear with an unprecedented late September frame, all movies counting an estimated $122.3M per Rentrak. The last time the 39th weekend of the year was this high was 2015 when Hotel Transylvania 2 led the entire domestic marketplace to $137.8M. Distribution sources on Friday though that four movies would clear $20M+ a piece this weekend. So what? It’s close to four, and that’s pretty damn good.
From what we heard there were no material cinema closures in the Northeast despite 85,000 customers being out of power. In the NYC area alone around 2,500 were without power per CNN.
The last two weekends saw one movie lording all the cash in their respective opening frames, i.e. Warner Bros/Alcon’s Practical Magic 2 and Sony/Constantin’s Resident Evil. How did this pluralist market come to be where four studios pushed through four largely (competitive, not all of them are) counterprogramming titles?
Beamed one distribution boss, “It’s a statistical anomaly,” while another New York-based one believes late September is an ideal time to get a solid awards contender in the ether before the onslaught begins.
Read, last year at this time, we had the expensive, but very much ultimate Best Picture and multi-Oscar winner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Leonardo DiCaprio family anarchist epic, One Battle After Another opening to $22M. This year, we have Disney/Marvel Studio’s Avengers: Doomsday marketing stunt, the re-release of the Russo Brothers’ Avengers Endgame: Encore opened to $26M. That’s more than $25.4M opening of last year’s 20th anniversary re-release of Revenge of the Sith. Note, the 1997 re-release of Star Wars still stands as the best opening ever for a re-release stateside with $35.9M. The second highest grossing movie ever at the global box office still has big fans with a 91% positive score on Screen Engine/Rentrak’s PostTrak and an 81% definite recommend. The 18-34 bunch are dominant at 66%. Male-to-female is 60%/40%. Latino and Hispanic moviegoers are leading the way at 36% to 34% Caucasian, 16% Black, 8% Asian American. Combined Imax and PLF screens (excuse me — Infinity Vision) are driving a massive 60% of the weekend take. The movie is playing everywhere with AMC Empire in NYC the top grossing venue with more than $90K through Saturday. We stand corrected: There’s six minutes and 17 seconds of extra footage in Encore if you watched in InfinityVision, while non-Imax/Infinity Vision screens had two minutes and a six second bonus.
Resident Evil had a great hold with $23.3M in second place, -61%, after a second Friday of $6.9M with a ten-day total by tomorrow of $103.4M; bound to be Zach Cregger’s highest grossing movie ever, clipping Weapons $151.5M final domestic. The zombies are sharing Imax and PLFs with Avengers.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount’s Brad Pitt movie, The Heart of the Beast, right now, even on Sunday AM, is still eyeing a solid $20M start in third, well above NRG forecasts of $18M. Though some might say that’s not enough for this $82M net production, don’t put the movie in the doghouse: this gritty vet with his dog survival movie is a crowdpleaser with a solid A- and 73% definite recommend on PostTrak. Given the whole Americana notion of the pic, these movies typically make the bulk of their cash in the ole U.S.A. versus abroad (very pre-Covid Lone Survivor did 81% domestic to 19% foreign in its overall $154.8M WW haul), but we hear overseas is coming on strong this weekend given the pic’s universal themes. Right now The Heart of the Beast beats very well in the West, Mountain, South Central, South and Midwest. Diversity demos show 52% Caucasian, 26% Latino and Hispanic, 9% Asian American and 7% Black. Very minimal PLFs are repping 10% of the weekend. Remember how older audiences weren’t coming out as much post Covid? They did here with 31% over 55, and close to 50% over 45. Male-to-female is 56% to 44%. That wasn’t evident in presales, proving there are still anomalies like Heart of the Beast at the B.O. The Harkins Estrella Falls in Goodyear, AZ is the movie’s top grossing site with close to $34K.
Rivals were trying to will A24’s to a $20M opening, however, A24 had a sense that might be too high. It came in at $19.1M off a B CinemaScore, which is still above its pre-weekend tracking of $12M-$16M and in the mean opening of late for Robert Pattinson original movies (the lofty priced $118M Mickey 17 opened to $19M, but Primetime is much cheaper at a net $15M). A24 can thank Chris Hansen. Despite his saber rattling about his big screen portrayal, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Massive turnout from the 25-34 at 46%, by far the largest quad. The 18-34 altogether are also huge at a 80%. Want more demos? Under 30 showed up at close to 70% indicating that the Gen-Zers were in seats. Definite recommend though is 56%. It’s an A24 movie, so they thrive on dividing. Diversity turnout is 51% Caucasian, 27% Latino and Hispanic, 9% Black, and 10% Asian American. A near 52% to 48% male to female split as the Pattinson fans showed up at 33% women over 25. Next were men over 25 at 30%. Best areas of play are West, East and Midwest. AMC Burbank is king with the feature take of To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen with over $108K through Saturday. The movie is based on Luke Dittrich’s Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die.”
Social media reach on Primetime was 188M across TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X and Instagram, +31% over other crime-drama pics, and that’s with Pattinson off-the-grid on social. Buzz was very good heading into the weekend per RelishMix at an 8 out of 10.
“The consensus is that Robert Pattinson has officially transcended vampire purgatory and entered his generational-shapeshifter era. There’s an electric current around A24’s involvement, treated it like a stamp of quality control. Commenters are pre-writing memes of ‘have a seat.’ People are also drawing comparisons to prior gritty character work, using those references as a badge of quality. Viewers marvel, ‘It blows my mind how Robert Pattinson is so gooood at changing his voice/tone/accent. Impressive,’ while another declared with the confidence of a film-school thesis, ‘It reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler.’
Good news for DreamWorks Animation Forgotten Island is that those families who watched it, overall loved it with an A CinemaScore and a general audience 83% definite recommend. The nag factor though from kids under 12 is low at 63% which gets this family option to $12.8M for the weekend. Mostly girls showing up at 60% to 40% boys. Again, in box office days of yore, the family animated feature on this late September weekend is historically the champ. The movie cost a net $80M before global marketing spend. Fifty-four percent women to 47% men in the general audience with 68% general to 32% families. Asian American audiences were huge at 40%, Caucasians repped 27%, Latino and Hispanic at 19% and Black moviegoers at 9%. A handful of PLFs are counting 10% of the weekend. Best areas of play are West and East Canada, and the West coast. AMC Burbank is the top gross with close to $61K through Saturday. There was 7% K-12 schools off per Rentrak on Friday and 4% on Monday, but those small figures never stopped any studio from booking an animated title on this weekend.
Sony Pictures Classics release of their Sundance pick-up, Ha Chan, Shake Your Booty did $236,5K at 540 theaters for a theater average of $438. The Josef Kubota Wladyka directed movie is 90% certified fresh with critics. Pic’s blurb: Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Islamic U.S. hitman action movie, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother starring Mahershala Ali and John Cho, and directed by Bassam Tariq posted a first Friday of $94K on its way to a $199K opening at six locations in NYC (Angelika, Alamo Brooklyn and AMC Lincoln Square) and LA (AMC Grove, Burbank and Century City) for what’s a $33,1K solid per theater. AMC Lincoln Square led all venues with close to $39K. Reviews are 96% fresh out of its TIFF world premiere. Watch our interview with Ali, Tariq and cast below:
Overall, this the 26th weekend out of 39 where all movies did north of $100M. Last year that only happened 17 times. The domestic box office year to date is on the verge of crossing an amazing $8 billion, likely next weekend. Note, we didn’t cross $8B until December last year. Post Covid the best domestic year was 2023 with $9B. Last year finaled at $8.87B while 2024 ended with $8.7B. As Al Swearengen use to say on Deadwood: “Huzzah!”.
Chart updating with Sunday AM figures, indicated but by additional Saturday and Sunday daily breakouts:
1.) Avengers Endgame: Encore (Dis) 3,060 theaters, Fri $11.2M, Sat $8.6M Sun $6.2M 3-day $26M/Lifetime cume $884.3M/Wk 1 of re-release
2.) Resident Evil (Sony) 3,684 theaters, Fri $7M (-73%) Sat $9.8M Sun $6.5M 3-day $23.3M (-61%), Total $103.4M/Wk 2
3.) Heart of the Beast (Par) 3,435 theaters, Fri $7.5M, Sat $7.3M Sun $5.2M 3-day $20M/Wk 1
4.) Primetime (A24), 2,863 theaters, Fri $8.5M, Sat $6.1M Sun $4.5M 3-day $19.1M/Wk 1
5.) Forgotten Island(Uni) 3,548 theaters, Fri $4.3M, Sat $4.96M Sun $3.47M 3-day $12.8M/Wk 1
6. Practical Magic 2 (WB) 3,178 (-985) theaters, Fri $1.5M (-54%) Sat $2.3M Sun $1.78M 3-day $5.675M (-53%), Total $59.8M/Wk 3
7.) Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 2,409 (-608) theaters, Fri $1M (-35%) Sat $1.8M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.1M (-35%)/Total $950.7M/Wk 9
8.) The Odyssey (Uni) 1,021 (-525) theaters, Fri $1M (-23%) Sat $1.5M Sun $1.1M, 3-day $3.7M (-25%), Total $616.5M/Wk 11
If you want to know how this three-hour epic is doing 11 weekends out, we witnessed a near 6PM sold-out show last night at AMC Universal Citywalk’s massive Imax screen.
9.) Coyote vs. Acme (Ketch) 1,905 (-1,130) theaters, Fri $430K Sat $862K Sun $620K, 3-day $1.92M (-56%), Total $58.3M/Wk 5
10.) Daniel and the Fiery Furnace (Ekkl) 1,301 (-224) theaters, Fri $398K (-63%) Sat $623K Sun $493K 3-day $1.514M (-54%), Total $6.2M/Wk 2
FRIDAY PM: If a Nor’easter doesn’t shut down the power in the Northeast, four films are looking at doing over $20M each in what is another fantastic sign for moviegoing in a year that’s racing to $10 billion.
Currently, there’s no word whether theaters are closing down from New Jersey up to Boston as wind and rain is expected to hammer the region.
Disney/Marvel Studios’ three-hour Avengers Endgame: Encore has the upper hand among the new stuff with an estimated $11M today and between $23M-$26M at 3,060 theaters. The pic’s lifetime cume after this weekend on the high end would move to $884.3M. Even though there’s no endgame for Encore in its re-release, there’s no expectation for it to unseat the Marvel Studios movie over at Sony, the all-time domestic leader Spider-Man: Brand New Day (which will have a cume around $950M by Sunday).
RELATED: Summer U.S. Box Office Hits All-Time $4.76B Record: How Audiences Surrendered To Moviegoing
Second place belongs to Sony’s second frame of Resident Evil at 3,684 locations with a 3-day of $22M, -63%, after a $6.5M Friday. Running domestic tally by EOD Sunday should be around $102.1M for the Zach Cregger revamp. Read Deadline’s review here.
Third is a fight between Brad Pitt and Robert Pattinson, respectively, with Paramount’s Heart of the Beast and A24’s Primetime. Heart of the Beast at 3,435 sites is seeing a Friday of $7.5M, 3-day of $20.5M. Primetime is around $8.5M today, with many optimistic that it gets past $20M. There is a chance it could recede to $18M-$19M, and that ain’t a bad thing for this $15M-net production that didn’t cost as much as Pattinson’s Mickey 17 at net-$118M. The Smashing Machine, this movie is not ($5.8M opening). That was another A24 hipster and sophisticated adult play a year ago that fell to the mat.
RELATED: ‘Heart Of The Beast’ Review
RELATED: ‘Primetime’ Review
Typically the family animated movie is the stronger in this final September slot, but not this year with Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island filing $3.9M today (including previews) and $10.1M 3-day for the weekend, out of its $13M-$15M range. No RT audience score yet.
RELATED: ‘Forgotten Island’ Review
Right there you have the top five films alone doing between $95M-$98M for this weekend. The best post-Covid weekend for the last frame of September was 2024 with $93M. That’s when Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot opened to $35.7M.
FRIDAY AM UPDATE AFTER EXCLUSIVE: Previews are in with Disney/Marvel Avengers Endgame: Encore grossing $3.8M yesterday, which is ahead of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith‘s $3.4M previews for its re-release last year.
Mind you, for quite some time before Spider-Man: Brand New Day came along, Avengers: Endgame had the domestic previews record of $60M (now No. 2).
A24’s Primetime starring Robert Pattinson grossed a solid $2.7M at 2,859 theaters, $200K shy of the studio’s previews for 2024’s Civil War ($2.9M), which went on to a $25.5M opening. Also that’s way ahead of recent Pattinson previews, i.e. this past spring’s The Drama ($1.7M, $14.3M opening) and last year’s Bong Joon Ho sci-fi feature Mickey 17 ($2.5M, $19M opening).
Paramount’s Heart of the Beast made $2M, and that’s from showtimes last night and Monday Mystery screenings. That figure bests the $1.5M made by Brad Pitt’s 2019 sci-fi drama Ad Astra which went bowed to $19M.
Wouldn’t that be amazing if we had four movies this weekend doing north of $20M — meaning Avengers, Primetime, Heart of the Beast and Resident Evil? Great news here for Heart of the Beast is that it’s 97% with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes with way more love than Ad Astra (40% Rotten).
Resident Evil should it do over $20M this weekend, which would clear the century mark stateside to become the 19th movie to top $100M this year. The Zach Cregger-directed Sony/Constantin feature ends the week with $80.1M.
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island did $1.48M in previews all-in from showtimes yesterday ($750K at 2,650 sites), Mystery Monday screenings ($342K), and Sunday sneaks ($388K). That’s ahead of post-Covid’s The Bad Guys ($1.1M), which debuted to $23.9M in 2022, and not too far from The Wild Robot‘s $1.95M previews, which translated into a $35.7M opening in 2024. Original animated movies have become increasingly harder to launch. Good news here is that Forgotten Island is 95% fresh with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s the only family choice until Warner Bros’ animated The Cat in the Hat arrives on November 6.
Top 5 for week:
- Resident Evil (Sony) 3,684 theaters Wk $80.1M/Wk 1
- Practical Magic 2 (WB) 4,163 theaters, Wk $16.2M (-57%), Total $54.1M/Wk 2
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony) 3,017 theaters, Wk $8.6M (-23%), Total $946.5M/Wk 8
- The Odyssey (Uni) 1,546 theaters, Wk $8M (32%), Total $612.8M/Wk 10
- Coyote vs. Acme (Ketch) 3,035 theaters, Wk $6.2M (-61%), Total $56.4M/Wk 4
EXCLUSIVE: Here’s what’s cool about this weekend.
Without any wide entry opening to north of $30M, it’s going to be a fantastic late-September frame at the box office. It wouldn’t be shocking if the marketplace sees the best late-September weekend since 2018, when all films totaled $106.4M. From a pure box office standpoint — forget about budgets and marketing costs for a minute — we’ve got four wide openings aimed at various demos in Disney/Marvel Studios’ Avengers Endgame: Encore (fanboys), A24’s Primetime (Gen-Z and Robert Pattinson fans), Paramount’s Brad Pitt dog movie Heart of the Beast (flyover states and men/women adults) and Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island (families).
Heading into this weekend, it was believed that No. 1 could be a fight between Avengers Endgame: Encore and the second weekend of Sony/Constantin’s Resident Evil, respectively at $25M-$30M and $21M-$24M.
But there are curveballs: It’s the year of Pattinson in The Drama and beggars-getting-out-of-here memes in The Odyssey, and though A24 is eyeing $12M-$16M for his latest movie Primetime, about To Catch a Predator‘s Chris Hansen and his case gone wrong, the $15M-net production has a shot at a $20M opening in North America at 2,814 theaters.
“It could be a three-way fight for No. 1,” says one distribution source.
We’re hearing that previews tonight for the first feature narrative title from documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim are chasing Avengers Endgame: Encore‘s $3M+ previews with a figure between $2M-$3M. Previews for the R-rated Primetime began at 4 p.m. Thursday, and Rotten Tomatoes reviews and critics are great at 86% certified fresh and 85%. Encore‘s showtimes began today at 2 p.m. Thursday.
Those previews for Primetime are ahead of Pattinson pics The Drama ($1.7M, $14.3M opening in April) and possibly Mickey 17 ($2.5M, $19M opening last year), in addition to the Gen-Z summer horror surprise Obsession ($2.6M, $17.1M opening). The A24 financed-by-foreign-sales movie is bowing abroad this weekend in France, Germany, Austria, Taiwan, Iceland, India, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Meanwhile, Avengers Endgame: Encore, boosted by four extra minutes of the Russo brothers’ upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, has preview cash that could possibly surpass that of last year’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith‘s re-release, which was $3.4M (that turned into a $25.4M opening). We heard presales for Encore were ahead of Revenge of the Sith‘s reissue. The asterisk here is that sometimes these re-releases can be front-loaded, so we’ll see how Encore plays out. The Russo brothers’ Encore is booked in around 3,000 theaters, boosted by Disney/Marvel’s new certification on 1,300 premium large-format screens, Infinity Vision, plus 390 Imax hubs. Encore will share Imax and PLFs with Resident Evil.
Overseas outlook for Encore is $25M in what’s bound to be a $50M WW weekend give or take. While James Cameron’s Avatar remains the No. 1 movie of all time at $2.92B worldwide, Avengers: Endgame is No. 2 with $2.799B (and Spider-Man Brand New Day No. 3 with $2.5B). There is a $124M WW box office gap between Avatar and Avengers: Endgame. Disney is in wait-and-see mode on whether Endgame could reclaim the all-time top spot before Doomsday‘s December 18 opening. Unlike Revenge of the Sith‘s one-week play, there’s no endgame for Encore at the fall box office.
Paramount’s Heart of the Beast leaves audiences moved and crying, including Deadline chief critic Pete Hammond. Film reviewers aren’t shrugging it at 89% certified fresh on RT. Tracking outlook is $17M-$20M at 3,400 theaters. Previews began at 2 p.m. Thursdayday for the David Ayer-directed PG-13 movie, and we hear from sources they’re around $1.8M (that includes Monday Mystery screenings). That figure is just north of what Pitt’s fall 2019 sci-fi drama Ad Astra did in previews at $1.5M ($19M opening). The movie cost a net $82M before global marketing with dueling edits by Ayer and Pitt’s (Ayer’s won). Internationally, the film will open this week in 63 markets (or 95% footprint) including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Expectation abroad is $15M for what could be a $35M WW opening. The hope is that older men and women find the film. Like Primetime, this survival tale about a Special Forces veteran and his combat dog who are stranded in the Alaskan wilderness, sells itself upon viewing.
Forgotten Island from Puss in Boots: Last Wish filmmakers Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado is looking at $13M-$15M at 3,500 sites. Typically, late September is home to a family animated movie, i.e. Abominable, Cloudy With a Chance With Meatballs, The Wild Robot, the list goes on. Blurb for Forgotten Island: Two best friends become stranded on the mystical world of Nakali, where their only escape might cost them their shared lifetime of memories. Previews today stateside began at 2PM and are estimated between $800K-$1M, we hear. Pic has a staggered offshore rollout. Last weekend, $1.5M was made in Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. An additional 31 markets this weekend will bring Forgotten Island‘s count to 34 markets with an additional $10M in store.
Resident Evil‘s cume through Wednesday stands at $76.8M.
