1917 is off to a great start as it heads into wide releases this weekend.
The World War I film opened to $3.25 million in Thursday night previews began at 7:00 PM in 2,900 theaters. It’s a truly solid start which is likely to engage the older demographic as it plays throughout the weekend. Tracking has the film at $20-25 million for the weekend while I predicted $25-30 million. Given the preview number, I think it’s going to open at the higher end of expectations. For comparisons sake, the Thursday night is under Dunkirk‘s $5.5 million previews, and American Sniper‘s $5.3 million =wide previews, but while all these war films targeted the same older male audience, Dunkirk had the benefit of a summer release and Clint Eastwood’s Bradley Cooper movie was a rarity in January as it tapped in the patriotism in all of us and began its road to becoming a true word of mouth hit.
Like A Boss also got started in Thursday night previews last night and the comedy grossed an impressive $1 million at 2,428 locations yesterday from shows that began at 7:00 PM. I really think the female demo is going to make this one pop this weekend and the opening may come in stronger than anticipated. For comparisons sake, the preview number is higher than Tiffany Haddish’s Paramount comedy Nobody’s Fool ($600,000) which opened to $13.7 million and a tad under last February’s What Men Want starring Taraji P. Henson which earned $1.25 million in Thursday previews and a $18.2 million opening.
Just Mercy also hit Thursday night previews before its wide release today and grossed $800,000 last night off 7:00 PM shows. The film, about civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson’s case to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner, comes in higher than the $600,000 that Focus Features’ Harriet made and 2014’s Selma ($400,000). Selma, which like Just Mercy had a limited run before going wide in early January, posted a first wide weekend of $11.3 million at 2,179 theaters. Harriet posted a similar opening during the first weekend of November last year with $11.6 million.
As expected, Underwater came in low during its Thursday night preview launch with $500,000. I learned today that the cost $50 million to make and has been done for awhile but got lost in limbo during the Fox/Disney merger. This is one of those projects that Disney likely dumped to clear the Fox slate it picked up so its road from here is likely a subpar weekend before ultimately being forgotten. Exits for the film are not encouraging with opening night audiences rating it at 2 stars with a low 37% definite recommend. Demo breakdown was men over 25 (34%), females over 25 (27%), females under 25 (21%) and males under 25 (18%). Bad grades throughout with young females hating it the most at 42% and females over 25 liking it a bit more, but not by much, at 65%.
