Zombieland: Double Tap is claiming an early victory over Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in Thursday night previews, although Maleficent being a family film may push it ahead as the weekend progressed.
Zombieland: Double Tap grossed $2.85 million in Thursday night previews. It’s well ahead of the $500,000 preview amount of the first movie, which opened on October 2 ten years ago, but those were different times with previews when they began at midnight and weren’t as wide. Zombieland 2 started at 3,052 locations last night beginning at 7:00 PM and goes even wider today. Tracking has it at $25 million for the weekend while I predicted a gross of $28-30 million.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil wasn’t too far behind with a preview gross of $2.3 million. The first Maleficent off 9:00 PM shows grossed $4.2 million when it played during the final weekend of May in 2014 but comparing the two isn’t exactly fair. More of the target audience was out of school when the first film opened in late May while school is still very much in session for this release. The real story for Maleficent 2 will be told as the weekend carries on. For comparison’s sake, Thursday night isn’t that far from Dumbo‘s $2.6 million off 6:00 PM previews earlier this year, which opened to $46 million, but right on the nose with Cinderella which made $2.3 million off 8:00 PM previews and an eventual opening of $68 million.
