SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU: At $395.5M Deadpool & Wolverine is the highest grossing R-rated movie ever at the domestic box office surpassing Passion of the Christ ($370.7M) as well as the previous two Deadpools this weekend (Deadpool at $363M and Deadpool 2 at $324.6M). This is after a phenomenal second weekend of $97M, -54%, the 8th best second weekend ever, ahead of Barbie‘s $93M second frame a year ago, but also the fifth best second frame ever for an MCU movie. Currently, it’s not expected for D&W to ride past $100M. Running global cume is $824.1M; this movie is headed to a billion even without Russia. Final industry projection for the Shawn Levy directed, Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman starring title stateside is half billion.
It’s funny, even in boom times at the box office, the entertainment media can be cynical, saying that few films work at the box office and that theatrical is still broken. That’s horse sh*t: This was the third highest grossing weekend of the year at the box office with an estimated $173M after the D&W led frame last weekend of $284.8M and Inside Out 2‘s weekend of June 14-16 ($213.9M) per Box Office Mojo. It’s evident, we now have an inventory post-strike which will keep a turnstile momentum. Outside of D&W‘s success, we had Twisters pulling up second place with a third weekend of $22.6M and barreling toward $200M stateside, and a M. Night Shyamalan thriller in Trap which didn’t collapse and miss its projections with a $15.6M opening. Twisters, in addition to being the tornado film we haven’t seen in a while, has a lot of heart in Daisy Edgar-Jones and hunk in Glen Powell.
For all this talk of industry contraction, motion picture execs can now wake up to the box office renaissance, and get theatrical movies into production. There’s money in cinema. Stop with this, ‘we’ll wait until after the election’ excuse. People will still be going to movies well after Trump or Harris get in. And even if Trump loses, there’s still an untapped audience in the heartland for red-state theme features; Hollywood never ramped up enough American Sniper-like movies post that Clint Eastwood-Bradley Cooper 2015 film which played like a Marvel title to the middle of the country to $350.1M.
But what works? That’s often the whine as many fear greenlighting a streaming movie for the big screen, which then fails. However, the same adage that was true in the 80s with TV movies, and in the 90s for straight to video titles remains true today with streaming: Shlock stays in the home, anything else that’s intriguing goes to cinemas. As Improv guru Del Close use to preach: Play to the top of people’s intelligence. That same rule can still be used for what works on the big screen. It’s how a movie like A24’s Civil War –a title which was marketed to red and blue states alike–opens to $25.5M and becomes the distributor’s second highest grossing movie of all-time in U.S./Canada with $68.6M.
Sony’s Harold and the Purple Crayon did not work at the box office with a $6M opening, low as expected. On one hand, kudos to Sony for having the cajones to finally adapt a 1955 classic children’s title into a film. On the other hand, it’s clearly too old to be considered mainstream. Nobody’s going. The picture was always bound to skew extremely young (they call these kids movies ‘hand-holder’ movies), which is a box office hurdle already, however, this low budget, zany-fantastical formula of old kids IP, which Sony started with Peter Rabbit is becoming old hat, and the family audience is becoming smart to it. Read, 2022’s Lyle, Lyle Crocodile ($11.4M opening, $46.8M domestic). Should Harold have been sent to streaming? Maybe. The original material is quite avant garde to begin with and would require a Pixar touch story-wise to make it firebreathing. Wall Street Journal film critic Kyle Smith was the ultimate harbinger here on Harold‘s ultimate success: “The film’s effects-first, story-last strategy is a dismal failure. The charming, gentle simplicity of the book, with its childlike art, has been displaced by a mania for digital images and frantic attempts to be funny.”
Of the few who showed up for Harold, they loved it with an A-. PostTrak audiences are always more cynical and gave the Zachary Levi movie a 70% grade and 46% definite recommend, with kids under 12 better at 87%positive and 60% definite recommend. Female leaning at 54%, with 10% of the audience between 13-17,17% of the audience between 18-24 years old,37% of the audience between 18-34 years old,and 52% of the audience 35+ years old. Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, 13% Latino and Hispanic, 11% Black, 11% Asian and 8% Native American/other. Harold and the Purple Crayon played best to the middle of the country with the Cinemark CUT! in Frisco, Texas, the pic’s highest grossing location, with $8K since Thursday night.
Back to Deadpool & Wolverine, social media analytics corp RelishMix reports that the social media universe for the movie has swelled by 62.5M since opening, now at 1.21 billion across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram combined, and 1.66B SMU when you fold in the cast’s reach. Social media universe comps for D&W are Spider-Man: No Way Home (1.2 billion), Thor: Love & Thunder (963 billion) and Black Panther (900 million).
As far as the record holders for SMU in the MCU, that belongs to Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War, each with a reach of 2.47 billion. Cast activation is running at 238.5M, with Reynolds throttling over 200M Instagram views, fueled by his 123.6M activated fans, amplified by Jackman at 79.8M and Morena Baccarin at 5.3M fans.
Says RelishMix, “”Exit chatter on Deadpool & Wolverine weave in and around the MCU, with fans whoseexpectations were met and exceeded: ‘Having seen the movie a third time, I still want to watch it another time. Seeing the movie is doing well at the box office, smashing a record for a R-rated film, will Disney and Marvel finally realize the future? I hope so.’ Fans are also tipping their caps to the two leads, saying ‘I’m watching this in cinema a few more times. Masterpiece. Exactly what a Marvel film should be. I didn’t think it was possible. Thank you, Ryan and Hugh.'”
Warner Bros.’ latest from M. Night Shyamalan, Trap, gets a C+ CinemaScore, which is the same grade as Old, and a half-degree better than his previous thriller, Knock at the Cabin (C CinemaScore). Of the filmmaker’s highest CinemaScores at the B.O., it’s his 6x Oscar nominated 1999 opus, The Sixth Sense. PostTrak for Trap is much lower at 2 1/2 stars and 66%. When you aim for the fences with movies that have twists like Shyamalan, sometimes you hit it out of the park, and sometimes you divide. Look no further than the social media buzz which runs mixed-positive per RelishMix, with chatter out there whether the daughter of Josh Hartnett’s character in the film is a suspect.
It’s interesting to see the swings that studios have been taking. Pre-Covid, they’d never date an event movie before or after a Marvel title. Everyone knew that D&W was going to be big, but that didn’t stop Universal from putting Twisters ahead of the Reynolds-Jackman combo, and it didn’t stop Warner Bros’ from putting Trap here this weekend. Warners was looking to grab the hangover audience who already got their D&W fix; they weren’t trying to sidestep NEON’s horror film, Cuckoo, next weekend, though it helps not to have genre vs. genre in the same weekend. This weekend’s gross for Trap is par for the course for Shyamalan, post-Covid; Old opening to $16.8M and Knock at the Cabin at $14.1M.
Trap trapped 56% men, 25% of the audience between 18-24, with 58% between 18-34 and 37% over 35. Diversity mix was42% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 20% Black, 8% Asian & 6% NatAm/other.The pic is playing best in East, West, and South Central, with the AMC Burbank the movie’s highest-grossing venue with close to $50K since Thursday night.
Trap‘s social media universe reach stands at 259.2M across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram, per RelishMix, 47% above norms for first installment genre titles.
1.) Deadpool & Wolverine (Dis) 4,230 (+20) theaters, Fri $28.3M Sat $38.3M Sun $30.4M 3-day $97M (-54%), Total $395.5M/Wk 2
2.) Twisters (Uni/WB) 4,009 (-161) theaters, Fri $6.5M Sat $9.1M Sun $6.8M 3-day $22.6M (-35%), Total $195.5M/Wk 3
3.) Trap (WB) 3,181 theaters, Fri $6.7M Sat $5.1M Sun $3.8M 3-day $15.6M /Wk 1
4.) Despicable Me 4 (Uni) 3,369 (-241) theaters, Fri $3.3M Sat $4.3M Sun $3.5M 3-day $11.2M (-23%), Total $313.9M/Wk 5
5.) Inside Out 2 (Dis) 2,615 (-535) theaters Fri $2M (-23%) Sat $2.7M Sun $2M 3-day $6.7M (-22%) Total $626.8M/Wk 8
6.) Harold and the Purple Crayon (Sony) 3325 theaters, Fri $2.4M Sat $1.98M Sun $1.5M 3-day $6M/Wk 1
7.) Longlegs (NEON) 2,150 (-582) theatres, Fri $1.3M Sat $1.6M Sun $1.2M, 3-day $4.1M (-39%), Total $66.9M/Wk 4
8.) A Quiet Place: Day One (Par) 1,039 (-893) theaters, Fri $427K Sat $583K Sun $390K 3-day $1.4M (-55%), Total $137.4M/Wk 6
9.) The Firing Squad (Atlas) 803 theaters, Fri $330K Sat $330K Sun $250K 3-day $910K/Wk 1
What is this? It’s a faith-based movie about three Christian prisoners who face execution in a Third world country, and how their joy in Christ results in a stunning conclusion, written and directed by Timothy A. Chey who did the movie, David and Goliath. Pic stars Kevin Sorbo, Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Barrington. OK numbers in the middle of the country, with a 75% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
10) Ponyo – Studio Ghibli Fest (Fath) Sat $250K, Sun $550K, 2-day $800K/Wk 1
FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: The summer box office rebound continues with, of course, Deadpool & Wolverine, bound to soar, but Warner Bros.’ Trap actually set to seize a bunch of cash. Friday for the M. Night Shyamalan directed is $7.2M (including those $2.2M previews) for what’s a $17M opening in third place at 3,181 theaters.
That’s impressive for the exits this film is getting. What happened? A great trailer for a Shyamalan movie in which the studio and filmmaker weren’t messing around: We’re going to tell you the twist from the onset — Josh Hartnett is the killer. But can he get out of the trap being set for him? The movie, similar to Longlegs, had low awareness and high interest on tracking, and that’s a sweet place for a title to be as indicates the movie can overperform.
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High awareness on a movie means a lot of people know about it, but low interest, that’s the worst: Audiences know about the title but have no desire to see it. Hopefully this holds up. Following last year’s Knock at the Cabin for Universal, Warner Bros’ motion picture brass Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy lured Shyamalan and his daughter Ishana with her movie The Watchers over to the Burbank lot. Shyamalan finances all of his own movies, shooting them around his Pennsylvania homestead; the studio then picks up the title as he has full creative control. I hear Trap cost $30M.
Deadpool & Wolverine is seeing $27M in its second Friday, -72% but currently eyeing a first-place second weekend of $90M at 4,230 theaters. There’s still a lot of runway left in this weekend. Look out. At that level, that’s a -57% hold and with a running total by Sunday of $388.4M, making the Marvel Studios/Disney movie the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever, beating Mel Gibon’s The Passion of the Christ.
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Second place goes to Universal’s third weekend of Twisters, which is standing up amid theD&W monolith with a $6.2M third Friday, 3-day of $21M at 4,009 theaters, -40%, for a running total by Sunday of $193.9M. The sequel has another $47.9M to go before it passes the domestic total ($241.8M) of the original 1996 film.
Fourth place is Illumination/Universal’s fifth weekend of Despicable Me 4 at 3,369 theaters with a $3.2M Friday, 3-day of $10.7M (-27%) and running cume of $313.4M.
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Disney/Pixar’s eighth weekend of Inside Out 2 at 3,615 is making $1.9M today, $6.4M for the Fri-Sun span, -26% for a running total of $626.5M.
And everyone’s breaking Harold’s Crayons as the Sony take of the 1955 Crockett Johnson children’s novel Harold and the Purple Crayon is looking at $2.4M today, $6M for the weekend for this $40M production, in which Sony has less than a 40% stake.
RELATED: ‘Harold And The Purple Crayon’ Review: Zachary Levi And Jemaine Clement Face Off In A Thoughtful Family-Friendly Fantasy
FRIDAY AM: Here’s how Thursday went down at the box office: Deadpool & Wolverine grossed an awesome $18M, easily a R-rated record for a non-preview Thursday. M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap earned $2.2M, the best previews the director has had post-Covid, besting 2021’s Old ($1.5M) and last year’s Knock at the Cabin ($1.45M), while Sony’s Harold and the Purple Crayon, as expected, is nothing to write home about at $725K.
Deadpool & Wolverine ends its first week at $298.5M, which is 35% ahead of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s first week ($220.6M) and 29% ahead of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness‘ first week ($230.8M). Those 2022 movies ended their domestic runs at $453.8M and $411.3M, respectively. As we mentioned, Weekend 2 is wild for the Marvel Studios/Disney Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman movie, with a take of $84M-$100M. D&W‘s second Thursday is -53% from its $38.5M Thursday previews a week ago.
As for Trap, as good as Thursday was, there’s still a notion that the Shyamalan fans showed up, and it’s all downhill from there. The hope is for a $15M-$20M opening. Off the immediate critical reviews of 44% Rotten on Rotten Tomatoes (the studio did not screen the film for press and critics) and Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak exits of 2½ stars and 63%, it doesn’t look like the Josh Hartnett creepy-dad movie is going to make it there. Previews played in 3,000 theaters starting at 3 p.m.
Tracking firm Quorum disagreed earlier this AM, saying: “While awareness has been on the soft side for Trap, interest has been very high. At 54%, Trap has the 6th-highest level of interest among all films being tracked by The Quorum, ahead of films like Moana 2, Wicked and Gladiator 2. Projected opening: $20M-$23M.” Whoa.
Interesting to note that Trap‘s preview cash is a tad ahead of Shyamalan’s comeback movie from 2016, Split, which did $2M before a $14.6M Friday and $40M weekend. However, that pic overperformed as moviegoers learned that it was connected to the filmmaker’s 2000 movie Unbreakable, not to mention it had 78% certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes reviews and a B+ grade.
Shyamalan’s Old opened at a time when moviegoers were just getting adjusted to returning to cinemas post-Covid, seeing a $6.8M Friday, and a 3-day of $16.8M. The Philly director’s Knock at the Cabin turned in a $5.4M Friday and a $14.1M opening.
Harold and the Purple Crayon‘s previews started at 2 p.m. at 2,745 locations. The pic’s previews are just under Sony’s reviewer- and audience-lambasted late-summer 2017 toon The Emoji Movie, which posted a $900K Thursday night before overperforming to a $10M Friday and $24.5M opening. Harold and the Purple Crayon‘s PostTrak exits were 3 stars with general audiences, 3½ stars with parents and better with kids under 12 at 4 stars. Age breakdown for the kids were 47% between 10-12, 42% 7-9, and 11% under 7. Outlook for Harry: single-digit opening.
Thursday’s top 5 for regular pics in release:
1.) Deadpool & Wolverine (Dis) 4,210 theaters, Thu $18M (-7% from Wednesday), Wk $298.5M/Wk 1
2.) Twisters (Uni) 4,170 theaters, Thu $3.8M (-10%), Wk $53.2M, Total $172.9M/Wk 2
3.) Despicable Me 4 (Uni) 3,610 theaters, Thu $2.3M (-14%), Wk $25.9M, Total $302.7M/Wk 4
4.) Inside Out 2 (Dis) 3,150 theaters, Thu $1.3M (-14%), Wk $15M, Total $620.1M/Wk 7
5.) Longlegs (NEON) 2,732 theaters, Thu $871K (-12%), Wk $10.9M, Total $62.8M/Wk 3
