Escape Room is the lone new wide release competing with all the holiday holdovers and its Thursday night preview numbers indicate that it may just exceed its initial box office tracking.
Escape Room grossed $2.3 million in Thursday night previews at 2,386 locations last night from showtimes starting at 4 PM. Escape Room‘s gross last night is higher than the $1.98 million that Universal/Blumhouse’s Insidious: The Last Key made a year ago in Thursday night previews. Last Key went on to open to an impressive $29.5 million and tapped out at $67.5 million off a $10 million budget before P&A. Adam Robitel directed both Escape Room and Last Key and while comparisons to the opening of The Last Key may be a bit off since Insidious had a more established brand, a $2.3 million preview start for Escape Room almost guarantees that it will exceed tracking and my prediction of $11 million. PG-13 horror just seems to work in January and with a budget of just $9 million, Escape Room is on its way to profitability.
All of the holiday leftovers a lot continued to post strong numbers on Thursday. A lot of people are still off of work and school so weekday numbers have been particularly solid this week. Aquaman grossed $6.2 million yesterday, down 16% from Wednesday and in two weeks has come very close to beating the lifetime domestic total of Justice League ($229.02 million) with $229.017 million. Mary Poppins Returns grossed $3.95 million on Thursday, down 11% from Wednesday. The film has grossed $122.95 million to date and if it scores some Golden Globe wins, it could continue its leggy run at the box office.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse grossed $3.1 million on Thursday, down 5% from Wednesday. “Deadline” is reporting that the Wednesday night 7:20 PM 400-seat show at the Regal Valencia outside Los Angeles was filled to the brim, with audiences applauding after the film finished. This just shows how much of a crowd pleaser the film really is. Through three weeks Spider-Verse has grossed $120.9 million. Bumblebee took in an estimated $2.6 million yesterday for a two-week of $84.35 million so far. This weekend will be a big test for the well-received prequel as it may be the time that it gets more of the audience that was distracted by Aquaman and Spider-Verse.
Adult audiences are still showing love to Clint Eastwood as The Mule finishes out the weekday with $72 million so far. I saw the film last night and definitely see its appeal, especially with the older set who actually packed in our theater during a 9:55 PM showing at the Arclight. It’s possible that The Mule will leg it out to a final take of $100 million and that’s just a testament to the fanbase that Eastwood has established.
