While some major studios have no problem spending theatrical P&A to buy a pricey spot during the Big Game for a tentpole down the road, post Covid they’ve shown little interest in attempting to open a movie with any sizable marketing spend over Super Bowl. Gone are the days when they were able to launch a Taken or Hannah Montana movie. That’s so pre-streaming. It’s just not worth the money if an audience of 128 million isn’t there on a Sunday. In addition, Super Bowl weekend can sometimes rank as the lowest of the year, which was the case in 2024 with $37M. Last year, Super Bowl weekend ranked as the second lowest frame at the B.O. with $54.2M.
As such, this year’s Super Bowl weekend has 20th Century Studios’ Sam Raimi island thriller Send Help and Markiplier’s independently distributed Iron Lung fighting over first place (again). Send Help is expected to be the stronger, -55% or $8.6M. Iron Lung is holding strong at 2,930 locations in North America, expected to ease -60% for a 3-day of $7.2M. Send Help won Tuesday over Iron Lung, $2.4M to $1.85M. The running stateside cume on the Dylan O’Brien and Rachal McAdams movie is $23M while Iron Lung is up to $21.7M. Send Help will maintain premium large format screens.
(L-R) Bang Chan, Han, Felix, Seungmin, I.N, Hyunjin, and Changbin Lee Know of Stray Kids attend The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2024
Newcomers are a mix of indies who are all about mining moviegoers on Friday and Saturday. Bleecker Street through their new event cinema sub-label, Crosswalk, has the K-Pop concert movie, Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience in 1,697 sites. It’s a wild card. Tickets went on sale, and exhibitors got excited by the results, but given that it’s Super Bowl weekend, don’t make any crazy forecasts. Single digits is a safe range. Stray Kids have sold more than 30 million albums around the globe. Pic was directed by Paul Dugdale (Adele: One Night Only, Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour) with documentary segments directed by Farah X. There aren’t any Thursday previews, but there’s an Imax fan preview tonight in around 350 locations. The Strays Kids will share Imax auditoriums Na’vi.
Jordy Clarke/Lionsgate
Lionsgate has Renny Harlin’s Strangers: Chapter 3 at 2,500 sites. In the final installment of the latest trilogy, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) faces the masked killers one last time in a brutal, full-circle reckoning of survival and revenge. The three movies were developed as a single production with a net investment by Lionsgate of $20M. About $70 million in global box office already generated across the first two chapters. The R-rated movie, which begins previews on Thursday at 6pm, is best with women under 25 in first choice and has an outlook of around $5M.
Angel Studios has the Kevin James romcom, Solo Mio, in 3,052 theaters with an eye at $5M. Unaided awareness is best with…guys. Blurb for pic: Left heartbroken in Rome after a wedding disaster, a stranded groom finds his ruined honeymoon transformed by a determined local and a few meddling travelers-proving that sometimes heartbreak is only the beginning. Previews begin as early as 11:20 AM on Thursday for the PG rated comedy.
Vertical will unspool Luc Besson’s Dracula starring Zoë Bleu, Caleb Landry Jones and Christoph Waltz in what is a very epic retelling of the Bram Stoker IP we think we all know. While tracking indicates mid-single digits at 2,050 sites, the hope is that this movie bests the start of Vertical’s previous record opener, We Bury the Dead ($2.5M). Reviews are at 63% fresh with an overseas box office of $29M+ after getting released last year. This isn’t a distribution deal for Vertical. They acquired domestic. There are some Alamo Drafthouse previews tonight with full Thursday previews beginning at 12noon for the R-rated movie. Women over 25 are leading for this Dracula in first choice.
IFC has the body horror movie Whistle in 1,200 theaters with an expectation of low single digits. The Corin Hardy directed title follows a misfit group of unwitting high school students who stumble upon a cursed object, an ancient Aztec Death Whistle. They discover that blowing the whistle and the terrifying sound it emits will summon their future deaths to hunt them down. Whistle made its world premiere at Fantastic Fest.
