Miss Bala got the slow Super Bowl weekend started in Thursday night previews last night and got off pretty much in line where most were predicting.
Miss Bala grossed $650,000 at 2,050 theaters last night and while that figure doesn’t set the world on fire, it’s pretty decent for a film without brand recognition. Super Bowl weekend is pretty slow at the box office for the most part, especially with numbers getting kneecapped during the big game on Sunday. That being said, sometimes the weekend produces hits. She’s All That, back in 1999, opened over Super Bowl weekend and grossed an impressive $16 million. Back in 2006, the When A Stranger Calls remake surprised over Super Bowl weekend with an even better $21 million opening, a record at the time for a film opening over that particular weekend. Faring even better was Taken in 2009 with $24.7 million and the sixth weekend of American Sniper back in 2015 with $30.6 million. The weekend is usually kinder to female-driven films but those are examples of male-oriented projects that were able to break out. If something good is on the marquee, it could beat the Super Bowl juggernaut but if the project is subpar, it’s pretty much a dead weekend.
So where does that leave Miss Bala? It is rotten on Rotten Tomatoes with 29% but it should still over-index with Latinx audiences thanks to Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez in the title role. For comparison’s sake, Miss Bala’s Thursday preview numbers are ahead of the $600,000 for Fox’s Hitman: Agent 47 ($8.3 million opening), the Jennifer Lopez 2015 January thriller The Boy Next Door ($500,000 Thursday, $14.9 million opening) and far ahead of the $200,000 for Machete Kills ($3.8 million opening).
It’s still looking like a close race between Glass and Miss Bala for the top spot this weekend but we will have to see how this one plays out.
