TUESDAY NIGHT BOX OFFICE: Hi-Yo, “Despicable”! But No Fireworks For “Lone Ranger”

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The 4th of July extended “weekend” box office got underway last night at 7PM with screenings of DESPICABLE ME 2 (Universal) and THE LONE RANGER (Disney).  (Note:  there were also 10PM screenings of the Kevin Hart concert picture LET ME EXPLAIN, but Lionsgate hasn’t provided figures for those.)  As expected (Mitch Metcalf’s weekend predictions are here), it looks like a terrific holiday for Gru and his minions, less so for the masked man.

Despicable Me 2 made a very strong $4.7M on Tuesday night, which as the chart below indicates is the fourth best of the summer, behind only Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 6 and the Wal-Mart sponsored screenings of Man of Steel.  Those were all Thursday screenings before Friday openings, so it’s hard to say what they’ll mean for a 5 1/2-day weekend, but if the night-before screenings fall into the typical 5-10% range for the Fri-Sat-Sun period, that would mean $47-94M over the weekend and probably $75-150M by Sunday night.

The Lone Ranger, which cost roughly triple Despicable Me 2‘s $78M budget, made less than half as much as the cartoon last night, a $2M haul that’s in the bottom third of the summer’s night-before screenings.  Again, there haven’t been any other 5+ day weekend starts this summer for comparison, but this could mean $20-40M over the weekend itself and $35-65M by Sunday.  Critical response has continued to be dreadful, with just a 25% positive response on Rotten Tomatoes (12% from “top critics”).  My own review is here.

Incidentally, last weekend The Heat proved to be an outlier in terms of night-before screenings, with an excellent $39.1M weekend despite only $1M from the early screenings.  Theories are welcome as to why that would be, but it’s not as simple as “women’s movie,” because Sex and the City 2 had $3M in midnight receipts as part of a $31M opening weekend, at the high end of the 5-10% range.