Godzilla: King of the Monsters invaded Thursday night previews at the box office and claimed the crown for the night among the new releases.
Godzilla earned $6.3 million in Thursday night previews which is a nice start but it comes in lower than the preview numbers of its 2014 predecessor ($9.3 million). Godzilla did top the preview numbers for its other monster movie brethren, Kong: Skull Island ($3.7 million) so its opening weekend is likely to land somewhere in between the openings for those two films. 2014’s Godzilla went on to open to $93.1 million while Kong settled with $61 million.
The Elton John biopic, Rocketman, started singing on Thursday with $1.75 million in previews. The film also earned $580,000 from its Fandango paid preview screenings on May 18. For comparison’s sake, that’s lower than the $3.9 million earned by Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, on its preview night.
Ma, starring Octavia Spencer, got its Thursday night started with $1.4 million at 2,400 theaters off showtimes that started at 7 PM. The horror-thriller expands to 2,808 theaters today and its preview numbers top a few other Blumhouse releases such as Truth or Dare ($750,000) & The Visit ($1.02 million). Truth or Dare went on to gross $18.6 million during its opening weekend while The Visit surged to $25.4 million. Ma is expected to land close to the latter’s figure this weekend.
