SATURDAY UPDATE: Refresh for updates While it appeared that the summer box office was dusting itself off from the pandemic over the last two weeks, both newcomers Warner Bros. highly anticipated Jon M. Chu directed Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights and Sony’s Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway are currently filing less than spectacular results respectively with a No. 1 rank of $5M Friday, $13M 3-day and No. 4 place of $4M Friday, and $10.2M 30-day.
Paramount’s A Quiet Place Part II, as we told you, crossed $100M yesterday after a third Friday of $3.75M, -40%, on its way to a $12.5M 3-day (-35%) weekend in second. Don’t be surprised if the sequel reclaims the No. 1 spot this weekend, beating In the Heights, with a running total of $109.8M.
If there’s anything positive to say about the marketplace, the top four films are each grossing over $10M at the weekend box office.
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Now, why all of this? Several reasons, but chiefly, distribution analysts are having a hard time reading tracking and projections in a marketplace where 5,88K theaters are 75% and capacity restrictions (average 50%) are still in effect. Oh, let’s not forget the whole simultaneous theatrical-HBO Max day-and-date of it all for In the Heights. No one knows precisely how much the streaming service is siphoning away from movie ticket sales.
Interestingly enough, one of the first projections I heard for In the Heights, looked to be the most correct which was $10M to mid teens at 3,456 theaters. However, other box office sources, as the week went on, had the movie doing over $20M+, and that might have been on account of the estimated $20M Warners added to their P&A toward the end of their marketing blitz for this feature musical which is a celebration of diversity.
Sony always saw Peter Rabbit 2 in the $8M-$10M at 3,346 theaters, but rivals believed, like they did with In the Heights, that it could get higher. Peter Rabbit 2’s Friday number include $900K in previews.
Now, In the Heights has an A CinemaScore, indicating that the musical’s fans showed up, and it may take a while for some word of mouth to click in. Same for Peter Rabbit 2.
In all fairness to Warner Bros., Crazy Rich Asians, which is the logical comp to In the Heights, and also touted a fresh face cast, opened on a Wednesday, and in its first 3-day only made $16M. In the Heights opening day is only 2% off from Crazy Rich Asians $5M opening Wednesday. That said it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison: Crazy Rich Asians didn’t have previews, In the Heights did around $1M+ in Thursday previews, also Friday is a bigger day at the box office than Wednesday, duh. Crazy Rich Asians in the end posted a $26.5M 3-day, $35.2M opening weekend. In the end, the film beat its $30M 5-day projection.
Same wait-and-see rule can be applied to Peter Rabbit 2. While the first movie’s first day of $5.7M was higher than the sequel, its Saturday hopped up 97% over Friday to $11.2M, and resulted in being a game-changer for its opening weekend which ended at $25M.
New Line’s second weekend of Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It did $3.6M yesterday, on its way to an $11.3M weekend for a $45M running total by tomorrow.
Disney’s third weekend of Cruella at 3,307 theaters (-615) took in a Friday of $2.1M (-35%) on its way to a projected $6.7M, -39%, for a running total of $56M.
Universal’s second weekend of Spirit Untamed at 3,394 (+183) theaters made $830K on Friday (-66%) on its way to $2.9M sixth place (-52%) for a ten-day of $11.3M.
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