UPDATE — Endgame pummels newcomers into submission with $145M+ Second Weekend
5/4/19 UPDATE: Friday estimates are in, and Avengers: Endgame clocked in with $40.6M for what is looking to be a weekend cume of $143M to $150M. The ambiguity arises because the Saturday increase still remains a wild card; the 3 hour running time may persuade a higher percentage to check it out today rather than go for a late night Friday show, or the more frontloaded pattern versus Infinity War seen the last two days will continue.
Openers all fared on the low end of tracking as they suffered from their confrontation with the MCU monster. The Intruder crashed through the window with $3.9M and Long Shot fell short with $3.6M on Friday, both of which are now looking to debut in the $9M-10M range. The first animated film of the summer fell flat as UglyDolls collected only $2.5M, but a fantastic Saturday bump could still put the film over $9M for the weekend, which is some kind of consolation prize. Finally, El Chicano grossed $233K on Friday, so my forecast of $700K seems to be about right.
Other holdovers all felt the heat as the screen gobbled up by the four openers are preventing recovery after last week. The average decline looks to be well over 50%, even for Captain Marvel. A strange quirk seems to have occurred in the reported numbers for Pet Sematary, however, as its estimated to increase by 59.4% from last Friday with $655K, despite losing over 1,000 theaters and no other Paramount releases opening.
With an estimated $21.7M Thursday, Avengers: Endgame dropped a harsher than expected 14.1%, though that is understandable given its strong Wednesday performance. Its total now stands at $474M, just $500K shy of topping The Phantom Menace for a number 14 ranking on the domestic charts. The Friday and Saturday increases will determine just how much the superhero uber teamup can assemble this weekend; a record $150M+ remains a likely target.
Sony Screen Gem’s The Intruder got off to a $865K start in Thursday previews, which compares favorably to Breaking In’s $615K (though note Mother’s Day inflated the weekend opening considerably) and just below Tyler Perry's Acrimony which had $1M previews on its way to a $17.2M opening. Notably, previews for The Intruder started earlier than these comparisons at 5PM, so a low teens opening is still likely to be the best case scenario.
The Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen romantic comedy polled $660K worth of filmgoers last night, under The Upside’s $1.1M ($20.4M weekend), What Men Want’s $1.25M ($18.2M weekend), and Little’s $735K ($15.4M opening). An opening around $10M seems reasonable unless word of mouth catches on over the next couple days.
STX is unlikely to see any positive headlines on Monday, as its first foray in animation seems to be imploding asUglyDolls brought in an anemic $300K from Thursday previews. Admittedly, family films can have excellent weekends without boffo business from previews, but this is not far beyond the $230K Missing Link brought in on its way to a low $5.9M. An opening between $7M and $10M seems likely for Dolls.