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UPDATED SATURDAY AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis If today was Monday, then Ryan Reynolds won the box office with Disney/Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine filing a powerful third weekend estimated at $55.8M.
But do not deny the power of his spouse Blake Lively.
She won Friday with It Ends With Us from Justin Baldoni which pulled in $24M counting $7M previews; $17M if you back out previews. That beats D&W‘s $15.6M.
The co-financed Sony and Wayfarer Studios movie is still expected to land with a very strong $45M-$49M after a $24M Friday. Some are trying to forecast $50M, and you can’t slam this movie if it falls short of this. It Ends With Us is a major comeback, not just for Lively’s star power, but for female lit books on the big screen. Why send a bestseller to streaming when you can make a ton of cash on a low budget (which here is $25M)?
As we’ve been telling you throughout the whole weekend, female driven films can make a 180 in the course of their weekend, with the bulk of the IP’s fans catching the movie in its first two days. What gives this first feature take of Colleen Hoover’s novel promise is that the exits are strong with an A- CinemaScore and sustained 4 1/2 stars on PostTrak. Typically, feature adaptations of popular female novels can get a cold shoulder from the latter’s fans, read Fifty Shades of Grey (C+), Fifty Shades Darker (B+), and Fifty Shades Freed (B+) and The Divergent Series: Allegiant (B).
Still some rivals are giddy about the renaissance they’re seeing with It Ends With Us and are forecasting $50M+ with a -30% to -40% falloff today off Friday’s $24M (which includes $7M previews). Again, way too soon to call. Fault
Meanwhile, if you really want to talk about audiences who crater, there’s Lionsgate’s Borderlands which expected to do $8M-$10M. The Eli Roth directed feature take of the popular video game got a D+ CinemaScore. Eeeeshh. Also D+, who gets a D+? Why not just give it an F? Typically D+’s are left for horror movies. Every so often in a solar eclipse year, Lionsgate will pump out a bomb. Again, this one wasn’t greenlit by Motion Picture Group Chair Adam Fogelson; he’s careful when it comes to money. In recent memory, Lionsgate has had such bombs as 2016’s Gods of Egypt ($14.1M opening, $31.1M domestic, $150.6M global off a $140M cost) and 2021’s Chaos Walking (even worse with $3.7M opening, $13.2M domestic and $26.5M global off a $100M-$125M cost. Interesting to note is that Gods of Egypt opened during the third weekend of the original Deadpool, a similar occurrence here in the dating of Borderlands. However, it’s not the date that’s against this movie, and there’s no amount of smart marketing that could save what appears to in tone to be a Tank Girl meets Furiosa type of sci-fi fantasy film. What’s glaringly obvious is that nobody wanted to see this film. Period. It’s a complete disconnect between a studio believing there’s an audience for a videogame movie, which doesn’t exist.
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UPDATED FRIDAY MIDDAY: Right now Ryan Reynolds has the edge over Blake Lively as Disney/Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine is looking at a $53M third weekend, and It Ends With Us with an opening in the mid $40M-range. Friday plus previews for the Justin Baldoni starring and directed movie is now $23.2M while D&W is at $15M, -46%.
Some rivals want to call It Ends With Us neck in neck with D&W, however, it’s too early to call. Female driven movies given the pent-up Thursday and Friday demand can fall off greatly, like in the forty percentile on Saturday off Friday/previews. 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars, which is based off the John Green bestseller, posted $8.2M in Thursday previews, then a first Friday of $26M, followed by a $12.6M Saturday, -53% off Friday/previews combined for a $48M opening. See how that works?
In addition, many source got so excited about the movie, they proclaimed that a Barbinheimer effect would take place this weekend, in that men and women would see both D&W and It Ends With Us. That’s still TBD after that very female heavy Thursday night of 82%. It’s very clear there weren’t a lot of guy dates last night. Barbie was a spirited, fun movie and It Ends With Us a bit more grave.
Currently, D&W is tying with Barbie‘s third weekend of $53M. At that level, the Shawn Levy-directed/co-written/produced X-Men movie is the sixth best third weekend for an MCU title, just ahead of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($45.5M).
As far as Borderlands goes, light candles and say prayers. The Lionsgate movie per industry estimates is eyeing around $4M today and just under $10M for the weekend in 5th place. Nobody was pining for a big screen take of what is billed as “the world’s most successful video game franchises” at 68M units sold WW, including over 24M units for Borderlands 2, and 12M-plus for Borderlands 3. Again, it’s not about bad movies, just bad budgets. What studio executive in their right mind spends $110M+ on the first installment of anything? The first Deadpool cost a net of $58M. More on that later.
Universal’s juggernaut of Twisters and Despciable Me 4 are locking third and fourth respectively with $15.4M (-32%) for and $10M (-13%) for the weekend. Twisters will stand at $222.6M at the end of its fourth frame on Sunday while DM4 in its sixth weekend will post a running total of $332.1M.
Outside top 5, it’s NEON’s Cuckoo coming in at just under $2M for today and $3M-plus for the weekend. NEON’s bar for success and profitability is significantly lower than that of Lionsgate’s.
UPDATED, Friday AM: Sony is calling the feature adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us at $7 million in previews for Thursday, when showtimes began at 2 p.m. for the PG-13 movie. In Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak exits, It Ends With Us is glowing at 4 1/2 stars and a 69% definite recommend and 85% positive, and it skewed female at 82% who gave it an 86% grade. Advance screenings were held Wednesday, but that money will be rolled into today’s gross.
A $40M+ opening weekend is in play, if not significantly more.
That’s the best preview cash for a female-driven film post-Covid outside of Barbie ($22.3M), outstripping such pics as Taylor Swift: Eras Tour ($2.8M), M3GAN ($2.75M) and Where the Crawdads Sing ($2.3M) and The Marvels ($6.6M), which we told you about last night. But it’s also ahead of other female lit feature takes as Fifty Shades Darker ($5.7M) and Fifty Shades Freed ($5.6M).
It Ends With Us also delivers the best previews ever for Blake Lively (in a starring role), well ahead of Green Lantern‘s $3.3M (in which she starred with hubby Ryan Reynolds). Meanwhile, Reynolds’ second Thursday of Deadpool & Wolverine made $9M yesterday, down 8% from Wednesday, for a running total of $440M and a second week of $141.5M. With an expected $50M third weekend, The Merc with the Mouth and Weapon X movie will cross the half-billion mark (though not this weekend).
RELATED: ‘It Ends With Us’ Banned In Qatar Due To Kissing Scenes
For It Ends With Us, diversity demos were 44% Caucasian, a very strong 35% Hispanic and Latino, 9% Black and 9% Asian American. If this movie takes off with Hispanic and Latino moviegoers even more this weekend, all pre-release forecasts are off.
Under/over 25 on the title starring and directed by Justin Baldoni was 37%/63%. Women over 25 made up 53%, women under 25 repped 29%, while the dudes that got dragged along were 11% over 25 and 7% under 25.
RELATED: Everything We Know About ‘It Ends With Us’ So Far
Wayfarer Studios and Sony co-financed It Ends With Us for a song at $25M before P&A.
Meanwhile, Lionsgate’s expensive $110M-$120M feature take of video game Borderlands, did $1.32M last night. The movie, which was deep-sixed in audience reactions last night with 1 1/2 stars, 50% positive and a 37% definite recommend, will be lucky to open in the teen-millions. Pic’s 3,125 locations include 391 Imax screens, 321 PLFs and 159 motion-seat screens (D-Box, 4DX). Critics (7%) and audiences (48%) loathe the Tank Girl-style Eli Roth-directed movie on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was not greenlit by the Adam Fogelson motion picture administration at the studio.
Neon’s horror movie Cuckoo, written and directed by Tilman Singer and starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, did $435,000 in previews; the pic is expected do in the single digits this weekend.
Thursday’s and the week’s top 5:
1.) Deadpool & Wolverine (Dis) 4,230 theaters, Thursday $9M (-8% from Wednesday), Week $141.5M, Total $440M/Wk 2
2.) Twisters (Uni) 4,009 theaters, Thu $2.3M (-10%), Week $34.3M, Total $207.2M/Wk 3
3.) Trap (WB) 3,181 theaters, Thu $1.2M (-12%), Wk $21.9M/Wk 1
4.) Despicable Me 4 (Uni) 3,376 theaters, Thu $1.6M (-12%), Wk $19.4M, Total $322.1M/Wk 5
5.) Inside Out 2 (Dis) 2,615 theatres, Thu $952K (-10%), Wk $11.3M, Total $631.5M/Wk 8
PREVIOUSLY, Thursday EXCLUSIVE: It’s going to be a really special weekend at the box office, the kind that studios pray, pine and wish for. Out of the blue, a feature adaptation of a femme-driven novel, Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, has a shot at possibly undermining Disney/Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine in its third weekend.
It’s another classic girls against boys on the marquee, ala Oppenheimer and Barbie (in demo draws that is). Tonight, industry sources tell us that the Blake Lively-starring feature has racked up $7 million in previews that began at 2 p.m. today.
That figure isn’t that far from the pre-Covid previews cash of Fifty Shades of Grey, which posted $8.75M in previews and went on to a $30.2M Friday and $85.1M opening weekend. The Justin Baldoni-starring and -directed movie co-financed by Wayfarer is also near the $7.5M previews of 2008’s Twilight, which posted a $35.9M opening day and $69.6M opening weekend. It’s a preview figure for femme-driven movie like we haven’t seen in quite some time (not counting superhero movies like Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman). While we’re talking superhero movies, heck, It Ends With Us is already beating Marvel’s The Marvels ($6.6M in previews).
It Ends With Us is movie that came on tracking at $15M, then swelled from there with industry projections at $40M and even significantly higher than that. Many are holding their breath. Why? Is It Ends With Us going to translate to regular moviegoers? That’s the question. This happens with tracking sometimes; it doesn’t capture the non-frequent moviegoers, in this case, female book readers. Not all book readers are moviegoers, and they’re clearly showing up, and that’s why it’s hard for some to peg the opening at this point in time. Given the nature of female-driven movies, the demo can show up in bulk tonight and Friday, with a fall-off on Saturday; the Friday-to-Saturday drop on Twilight was -40%, while Where the Crawdads Sing (Sony’s other femme lit-to-screen title from summer 2022) was -26%. By the way, It Ends With Us buries that pic’s previews, which were $2.3M. Sources tell us that It Ends With Us already has some $18M in presales, but that’s for the whole weekend.
There’s several perfect storms working in this movie’s favor, from Hoover’s popularity to Lively being in the midst of the Deadpool & Wolverine press tour (and hubby Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in It Ends With Us) to, yes, that Taylor Swift song in the trailer “My Tears Ricochet.” Audiences are already loving this at 94%.
Tonight, a rival exec told me this is the first time since 1990 that husband-and-wife superstars had back-to-back theatrical releases that boosted each other’s, the last being Bruce Willis with Die Hard 2 and Demi Moore with Ghost.
Even if It Ends With Us settles for No. 2 with a $30M opening this weekend, Hollywood needs to take the lesson like it’s coming from a burning bush: Think twice about what you send to streaming, and think twice about jettisoning a genre to steaming, because there’s gold in them thar cinemas.
