Universal had the most to boast last night at the box office, hitting the 18-34 arthouse demo with Robert Eggers’ Focus Features Viking epic, The Northman, which drew $1.35M last night in previews, and families with Dreamworks Animation’s The Bad Guys, which made $1.15M.
Lionsgate’s Nicolas Cage satire The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent made $835K in pre-opening grosses. That number includes paid screenings from last weekend as well as previews which started at 6PM last night. All three movies have solid reviews and are certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes: Northman (89%), Bad Guys (86%) and Unbearable (89%). That should be convincing enough to spur audiences to go to one of these three movies, however, Unbearable might come up short.
Despite the onslaught of wide release fare, it’s expected that either Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in its second weekend or Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in its third weekend battle for No. 1 with $18M-$20M a piece. It wouldn’t be shocking to see The Bad Guys muscle its way in there despite the fact that pre-release tracking has the animated pic at $15M; the movie booked at 4,000 locations. Last night’s previews for The Bad Guys began at 5PM in 3,000 locations.
Dumbledore took 2nd place to Sonic 2 on Monday and Wednesday. The lackluster audience response is believed to be impacting Dumbledore‘s traction. Last night the Warner Bros. sequel made an estimated $1.93M to Sonic 2‘s $1.9M. Fantastic Beasts 3 ends the week with an estimated $53.1M to Sonic 2‘s $41M. The latter’s running total is $130.6M, which is 16% ahead of the two-week cume of Sonic the Hedgehog back in 2020.
MORE..