The Grinch started its thievery of the weekend box office with an impressive debut in Thursday night previews.
The Grinch stole $2.2 million last night from Thursday previews at 3,200 locations that started at 6PM. That’s higher than the $1.7 million Tuesday night preview that Illumination-Univeral previously had for their animated musical Sing which opened before Christmas in 2016.
Illumination rarely plays at the end of the year, the last being Sing over Christmas, so it’s hard to compare to their previews. Minions in July 2015 earned their highest preview night with $6.2 million. However, Grinch is higher than Big Hero 6 which opened around this time in 2014 ($1.25 million).
Given that it’s the off-season for kids films on Thursday nights currently, The Grinch will boom greatly from matinees on Saturday and Sunday which could lead to a huge opening weekend. The last time the Grinch stole Christmas was in 2000 with the Jim Carrey live-action version which opened to $55 million and grossed $260 million domestically, becoming the highest-grossing film of that year. I see no reason why this version won’t open to $55-60 million and should play very well through the holidays, despite a 59% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Also opening in Thursday night previews is Overlord with $900,000. Overlord is actually the best reviewed new release of the weekend with an 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes but the film is definitely playing to a particular audience that may make it difficult to truly breakout. This is a zombie-World War II B-movie that will find its true life once it exit theaters. I’m predicting $7-8 million with it being a tight race between itself and our other new release for the weekend.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web also got started last night with $635,000 in Thursday night previews. It was significantly lower than Overlord but it could make up ground over the weekend to make the race between the two much tighter. The sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo is based on the 2015 fourth novel in the Millennium series, however, the book wasn’t written by the initial trilogy’s author Stieg Larsson, rather the author who took over the series David Lagercrantz. The first movie, which was directed by David Fincher, and starred 007‘s Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in a career-defining Oscar-nominated role as punk sleuth Lisbeth Salander, cost $90 million to make and opened over the year-end holiday season with a so-so $12.7 million but legged out to $102.5 million thanks to holiday inflation. At $43 million, Spider-Web is 52% cheaper than Dragon Tattoo and stars Claire Foy in the Salander role with the film directed by Don’t Breathe helmer Fede Alvarez. The cheaper budget will help but I doubt it will make that stateside at the end of its run. The reviews are rotten at 49% and I don’t think the film has enough mainstream appeal to be a true hit. I’m predicting maybe $8 million for the weekend.
That leaves us with Bohemian Rhapsody which will easily take second place this weekend and should see a solid hold in week 2. Weekday sales have been stellar and word of mouth is still very strong. I’m predicting about $30 million for its second weekend.
Check back on Monday for the full box office results.
