Updated, Saturday AM: Refresh for more analysis and chart…The wearing down of the MCU luster is unfortunately being seen as Disney’s Thor: Love and Thunder is having a great fall with a -68% drop for a second weekend that’s estimated to be around $46.5M. While the Taika Waititi-directed movie improved beyond its high $130M estimates last weekend into the $144M range, it’s clear those sour audience exits of a B+ CinemaScore and 3 1/2 stars are taking their toll.
Thor‘s second weekend drop ranks among the MCU’s worst including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (-67%) and Black Widow (-68%). Forget about Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s -68% second drop. That’s largely due to Christmas and everyone knows that Sony/MCU title was making money hand over fist on a daily basis. It’s an outlier.
Meanwhile, Sony/3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine’s feature take of the Delia Owens novel Where the Crawdads Sing is coming in ahead of its $9M-$10M projections with $15.5M-$16M in 3rd, a small win here for a $24 production before P&A. Some rival estimates believe the pic might be able to hit $17M. The 74% skewing female movie is winning over its core audience in its big screen treatment with 4 1/2 stars on PostTrak and an A- CinemaScore.
Paramount
On the downside, Paramount’s animated feature Paws of Fury isn’t punching with a $6.2M opening. If you want to know where families want to spend their money, it’s on the third weekend of Universal/Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: Rise of Gru which is racking up $25.3M in second place, -45%, for a running total of $261.8M.
Why is Paws of Fury in a crowded summer market? And not later in the fall which is starving for product? Paramount, nor others in the industry, were expecting Rise of Gru to overpower this much. A two week space in regards to opening felt safe. Paws of Fury was on this release date before Warner Bros. decided to push Black Adam, originally at the end of this month, and replace it with DC League of Super-Pets, which is tracking to do around $30M. Withering down the appeal of Paws of Fury is the fact that it feels in an animal martial arts movie, too similar to Kung-Fu Panda (despite the fact that Paws is set in Japan and the former franchise in China). There’s the notion that we’ve seen this film before. Nonetheless, the new creedo moving forward in the motion picture industry that’s chained at the hip to a streaming afterlife is that it’s better to bomb with a film on the big screen rather than send it straight to streaming. The mere fact that Paws of Fury gets a big theatrical release raises its patina and distinguishes greatly in the home aftermarket and beyond, versus if Paramount just dropped this on Paramount+.
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Previous, Friday AM: Sony/3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine’s Where the Crawdads Sing is off to a great start in the pandemic, particularly for a female-skewing property, with $2.3M off Thursday showtimes that began at 3 p.m. in 3,150 theaters.
Again, previews aren’t always a perfect science for smaller movies at the box office, especially during Covid, but it’s interesting to note that the film came in not too far under the $2.5M that the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum romantic comedy adventure The Lost City made on its Thursday night in 3,400 theaters off 4 p.m. showtimes back in March. That movie opened to $30.4M in the wake of a hot premiere at SXSW. Although it pulled in 61% women, Lost City was broader skewing in its appeal than Crawdads here, which was projected earlier in the week to make $9M-$10M. We’ll see if those numbers go up.
Film Review: Best-Selling Book Adaptation ‘Where The Crawdads Sing’
Everett Collection
Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder is expected to win the weekend again with $50M in its second go-round.
Where the Crawdads Sing’s Thursday night audience loved it with a 93% positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.5-star PostTrak exit.
Another testament to the popularity of Where the Crawdads Sings among its readers: The pic based on the Delia Owens book is blowing away several previews for movies based on Nicholas Sparks’ books, i.e. The Choice ($290K in 2016) and The Longest Ride ($625K in 2015). It’s proof, at least as of Thursday night, that the younger female demo hasn’t had a movie directly targeted at them for a while. As of January, Where the Crawdads Sing had sold more 12M copies.
‘Thor: Love And Thunder’ Heading To $200M+ As Counter-Programming ‘Paws Of Fury’, ‘Crawdads Sing’ Open – Weekend Preview
Meanwhile, Paramount’s animated movie Paws of Fury didn’t see a robust start, with only $505K off showtimes that began at 3PM at 2,650 locations. The pic opens today at 3,475 locations and is only expected to gross around $10M. Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys saw $1.15M in previews before a $23.95M opening in April, but that was at a time when there wasn’t an abundance of family fare on the marquee. Lots of competition here: We got Thor: Love and Thunder in theaters, which did around $8.2M Thursday, -7% from Wednesday for a $187.1M running total. Then there’s Universal/Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: Rise of Gru, which is still flexing its muscle with $5.4M Thursday, -11% from Wednesday, for a $236.5M total in Week 2.
In third was Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick, which did $1.9M, -6% from Wednesday for a $605.7M running total at the end of Week 7. It passed Transformers: Age of Extinction on Thursday to become Paramount’s top-grossing film of all time, with $1.2 billion worldwide.
Warner Bros.’ Elvis did $1.58M on Thursday, -12% sending its total in Week 3 to $98.5M.
Universal/Blumhouse’s The Black Phone earned $919K in its third Thursday for a running total of $66.7M.