After a few mild weeks, INCREDIBLES 2 (Pixar/Disney) has the summer box office back in blockbuster mode. It’s on pace to easily break Finding Dory‘s $135.1M animation opening record. According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, Incredibles 2 had a massive $69M Friday (including $18.5M from Thursday night), far better than Dory‘s $54.7M. If business holds up through the weekend–and there’s no reason to think it won’t, with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score and exit polls through the roof–it should be at $170M+ by Sunday (possibly significantly higher thanks to Father’s Day on Sunday), which would be one of the top dozen openings of all time. Remarkably, with the exception of Hotel Transylvania 3 a month from now, there isn’t a single other animated release scheduled for the summer, so Incredibles 2 has virtually no obstacles in its way, and if it has the same multiple as Dory, it could reach $600M in the US, which would put it in the Top 8 all-time. If it’s similarly hot internationally, it could gun for Frozen‘s $1.28B worldwide animation record.
Everything else was far behind. OCEAN’S 8 (Village Roadshow/Warners) fell 62% from last Friday to $5.9M. That’s a steeper drop than the 55% for Ocean’s 13, but that comparison isn’t apples to apples since 13 opened in 2007, before opening “Friday” included Thursday night. The weekend should be $20M, keeping 8 on track for $120-125M in the US.
TAG (New Line/Warners) had a mild $5.2M opening day, in the neighborhood of Game Night‘s $5.6M, and Fathers Day might push it to a $16M weekend, which would make breakeven tough once the expensive Warners marketing campaign is factored in. Game Night legged out a $17M opening to $69M in the US, but it didn’t face summer competition.
DEADPOOL 2 (20th) pulled ahead of SOLO (Lucasfilm/Disney) Friday vs Friday, even though Deadpool has been in the market for an extra week. Deadpool 2‘s $2.3M was down 40% from last week, and should lead to a $9M weekend, as the sequel prepares to pass $300M in the US next week. Solo‘s $2M was down 50% and it may have an $8M weekend, stretching to reach $200M in the US. (The relative economics are even worse than that looks, since Solo cost about $150M more to produce than Deadpool 2.)
HEREDITARY (A24) fell 58% from last Friday to $2.1M, a sharper drop than A Quiet Place‘s 45%, and even The Witch‘s 54%. With a $6M weekend, it could get to $35-40M in the US.
SUPERFLY (Screen Gems/Sony) was a loser with $1.8M on Friday, en route to a $5M weekend ($7M since Wednesday), a remake of a cult title that desperately needed to be cooler than it is.
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (Marvel/Disney) continued to hold spectacularly well, down 31% on its 8th Friday to $1.3M for a $5M weekend, now on track to reach $675M in the US.
On the opposite end of the box office, GOTTI (Vertical) opened on a barely-wide 503 theatres with just over $500K on Friday, and it might get to $1.5M for the weekend at the start of what will almost certainly be a brief theatrical run.
HOTEL ARTEMIS (Global Road) collapsed by 70% from last Friday to under $300K, and it won’t hit $1M for the weekend or $7M as a US total.
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR (Focus/Universal) expanded to 96 theatres and may have a solid $10K weekend per-theatre average.
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