The enduring respect and admiration for Get Out, and its own enthusiastic reviews, are pushing Jordan Peele’s US (Blumhouse/Perfect World/Universal) way past expectations. According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, opening day was $28.6M (including $7.4M from Thursday night), which means that in one day, Us has already earned more than 85% of Get Out‘s entire 3-day opening weekend. That Friday number is also the 3rd-highest ever for an R-rated horror movie, behind only It ($50.4M) and the most recent Halloween ($33.1M), and the only one of those not based on an already-renowned piece of IP. The next question, of course, will be how that start holds up through the weekend. The phenomenal Get Out rose 17% on Saturday, and had a 3.1x weekend multiplier, while It‘s was 2.4x, Halloween‘s was 2.3x, A Quiet Place‘s was 3x, and The Conjuring‘s was 2.5x. Us is likely to be more polarizing than Get Out, so a conservative 2.4x multiplier would put the weekend at $69M, with plenty of potential upside. Us will certainly be wildly profitable on roughly $100M in production/marketing costs (heavily weighed toward the latter), and it will hope to outdo Get Out internationally, since only 31% of that film’s worldwide box office was earned overseas.
The arrival of Us dampened CAPTAIN MARVEL (Marvel/Disney), which fell 52% from last Friday to $9.1M. That was better than the 56% drop that Captain America: Civil War had on its 3rd Friday, and similar to the 53% for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but not as good as the 49% for Avengers: Infinity War or the 44% for Black Panther. A $34M weekend would put Captain Marvel on track for a US total a bit under $400M.
FIVE FEET APART (CBS/Lionsgate) didn’t demonstrate the word of mouth that it might have hoped, down 47% to $2.8M. That suggests a weekend around $8.5M, and a $40-45M US total.
WONDER PARK (Nickelodeon/Paramount) collapsed by 61% Friday-to-Friday to $2.1M, and a weekend at $8M means its US total may be only $45M, disastrous compared to its $200M in costs.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) dipped 36% on its 5th Friday to $1.6M, for a $6M weekend and a likely $160M US total, about 10% below Dragon 2.
MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL (Lionsgate) lost 45% on its 4th Friday to $1.1M, for a $4.3M weekend, and it still might get to $75M in the US, which would make it #2 in the Madea franchise.
GLORIA BELL (A24) expanded to the low end of wide release at 654 theatres with a merely OK $450K on Friday, for a possible $1.5M weekend that wouldn’t suggest much room for further expansion.
NO MANCHES FRIDA 2 (Pantelion/Lionsgate) stayed at 472 theatres, and proved to be frontloaded, down 72% from last Friday to $350K, and similar to the path of the first No Manches Frida, which grew its theatre count by 30% and still fell 54% on its 2nd Friday. A $1.5M weekend would track to a $10M US total, slightly down from the first film’s $11.5M.
CAPTIVE STATE (Focus/Universal) imploded from its low start, down 75% from last Friday to $300K. It faces a $1M weekend and a dismal $7.5M US total.
About the Author
