Yahoo News ‘Blue Beetle’ Has Ticket To Ride Past ‘Barbie’ This Weekend – Box Office Preview
In what is poised to be a case of Warner Bros beating itself for the No. 1 spot at the box office this coming weekend, the studio’s new DC superhero title Blue Beetle is poised to halt Barbie‘s three-weekend streak with a $28M-$32M opening. Barbie, meanwhile, is looking at a $22M-$24M fifth weekend, -30%, per industry sources. Through Monday, the Greta Gerwig-directed Mattel doll feature counts $531.2M — the studio’s domestic top-grossing title ever.
As we told you, the Angel Manuel Soto-directed Blue Beetle is overindexing with Latino and Hispanic audiences, hence the hope is that there will be plenty of walk-up business. That was the case with Warners’ The Meg 2: The Trench, which hit a $30M start at the top of its projections two weekends ago. Blue Beetle crawls into 3,850 locations and will play in Imax theaters, which the pic gains in full from Oppenheimer. The DC superhero movie, which originally was conceived for Warner streaming service Max, also will play in Dolby Cinemas, PLFs, drive-ins and motion seats. Previews start at 2 p.m. Thursday.
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Again, this August looks like it’s on steroids next to last August, which was laid bare after Sony’s Bullet Train as features were delayed due to a clog in the post-production pipeline on account of Covid. Comscore reports that summer 2023 has clocked $3.6 billion for the period of May 5-August 13, +16% over the same frame in 2022 and only -5% behind pre-pandemic 2019.
Universal has the second new wide release this weekend, that being the R-rated potty-talking-doggies comedy Strays, from director Josh Greenbaum and produced by Lord Miller partners Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and Picturestart founder and CEO Erik Feig. The Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, Will Forte and Randall Park lead the voice cast for the comedy, which looks to do in the teens. The question is, how much does it overindex? August has been a lucky time frame for Universal with comedies, for like forever, going back to 2000’s Bring It On ($17.3M opening, $68.3M), 2005’s The 40-Year Old Virgin ($21.4M, $109.4M final) and 2019’s R-rated potty-mouthed pre-pandemic Good Boys ($21.4M opening, $83.1M final).
Currently, unaided awareness for Strays matches that across all audiences of Good Boys (that’s the part of tracking whereby when people are polled, they organically answer with their want-to-see-movie, versus being given a set of multiple options). While Good Boys tracked with younger guys under 25, Strays has more females’ attention. Strays previews start at 5 p.m. Thursday in more than 3,000 locations.
No Rotten Tomatoes critical scores yet for Strays and Blue Beetle.
Universal’s fifth weekend of Oppenheimer looks to do $12M-$13M, per industry sources. The pic through Monday had made $266.9M. Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is eyeing $10M-$12M in Weekend 3. The animated Nickelodeon/Point Grey feature counts $74.1M through Tuesday and, as we reported exclusively, the IP is seeing retail sales north of $1 billion for 2023.
In limited release, MGM has the theatrical bow of Cory Finley’s Landscape with Invisible Hand, debuting in 304 theaters. The R-rated sci-fi drama is based on the M.T. Anderson novel and is produced by Plan B and Annapurna. It made its world premiere at Sundance this year.
The logline: Years into a benevolent alien occupation of Earth, the human race is still adjusting to the new world order and its quirky coffee table-sized overlords called the Vuvv. Their flashy advanced technology initially held promise for global prosperity, but rendered most human jobs – and steady income – obsolete. When 17-year-old artist Adam Campbell (Asante Blackk) and new girlfriend Chloe Marsh (Kylie Rogers) discover the Vuvv are particularly fascinated with human love and will pay for access to it, they decide to livestream their budding romance to make extra cash for themselves and their families. Life is good, for a while, until the flame of their teenage love fizzles out and they’re forced to make very different, absurdly life-altering sacrifices for their families. Tiffany Haddish also stars. The pic is 74% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
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