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1 month ago
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In what is arguably tradition, the Labor Day weekend is going to be slow this year, moving this summer to a projected $3.6 billion total per Comscore, and that’s because the studios decided to play it that way.
Sony decided to push their R-rated Marvel movie, Kraven the Hunter, out of the four-day slot and into December to capitalize on the year-end moviegoing multiple. Fair and smart. In its place, they have the $12M Blumhouse John Cho starring, Chris Weitz directed Afraid which did $400k in previews (off showtimes that started at 4PM) and is projected to do around $5M for the 4-day weekend.
In Afraid, Curtis (Cho) and his family are selected to test a revolutionary new home device: a digital family assistant called AIA. Once the unit and all its sensors and cameras are installed in their home, AIA seems able to do it all. She learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way. The pic was originally titled They Listen, and the studio opted to change titles, not because test audiences weren’t listening to that title, rather they wanted to play up the ‘AI’ which is italicized in the tile.
Disney/Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine will close out summer’s finale with $12M-$14M over 4-days for its 5th No. 1 this season, Disney’s tenth No. 1 for the 18-weekend season stretch.
Another wide opener this weekend is Showbiz Direct’s biopic Reagan about the 40th President starring Dennis Quaid in the title role. It did $525k last night. Pic has an outstanding 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Projections for the weekend are in the single digits, but the distrib hopes that Middle America turns out and gets this into double digits over the four days.
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