Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald got off to a magical start and it bodes well for the rest of the weekend.
The Harry Potter spinoff sequel grossed $9.1 million in Thursday night previews. This figure beats the $8.75 million Thursday night preview of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them from two years ago at this time. Showtimes began at 5:00 PM and played at roughly 3,300 locations.
This start should make for an opening weekend that grosses beyond $70 million and this film should prove to be critic-proof which is a good thing considering the Rotten Tomatoes score has dropped to 45% rotten since I posted my box office predictions yesterday.
Also opening in Thursday night previews is Instant Family with $550,000. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the movie currently is at 70% fresh which could push the film to $20-25 million for the weekend. The film was a bit of a non-factor as we headed into the weekend but the positive response from critics gave it a bit of life and now it could be a decent player through the holidays.
The Thursday night preview numbers for Widows were not made available as of this writing but it’s being suggested that a gross of $18 million for the weekend is in the cards.
