This weekend is looking much closer than expected between Warner Brothers’s ‘Detective Pikachu’ and Disney’s ‘Endgame’ entering its third week of release. The former took a great $5.7M in Thursday night previews and based of a taking of $21M on Friday, is looking at $57.5M in its opening weekend, slightly above tracking and on par with industry expectations.
The reviews for the Ryan Reynolds flick were pretty decent, standing at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes and is certified fresh, and is trying to appeal to everyone as the first blockbuster after ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
The film carries a large $150M budget, however the film isn’t just succeeding in the US. Worldwide the film is now looking at a great $175M global debut, including a $50M+ debut in China. It’s still early to see how the film will do in the coming weeks due to the competition, however in the Middle Kingdom it doesn’t face any huge competition until ‘Godzilla: King Of The Monsters’ in two weeks time, leading me to believe that a cume of $500M worldwide is not out of the question.
Meanwhile, ‘Endgame’ is dropping much heavier than expected, but Marvel shouldn’t be caring, as it easily passes $700M in the US and $2.5BN this weekend worldwide, meaning it will overtake ‘Avatar”s $2.78BN global cume, albeit probably a week later. The film is looking at $61.5M in its second weekend, a drop of 58%, meaning it will stand at $722M in the US come Sunday, and over $2.5BN worldwide. In China, it will drop big also but has crossed $600M in the region, becoming only the third film to do so in the region, and the first Hollywood export.
Meanwhile MGM and Orion have been trying to do some counter programming of their own, with the negatively-reviewed ‘The Hustle’, which is looking at a reasonable $14M debut, but with a budget of $40M it might fail to break even.
However the worst debut of the weekend will probably go to ‘Poms’ starring Diane Keaton. The film was tracking for a decent $8-10M opening weekend, but is looking at a rather awful $5.1M opening weekend.
Meanwhile Disney’s (or Fox’s?) ‘Tolkien’ is also debuting badly, taking $2.5M in 1,500 theatres. When a studio goes big with a film like this, its because they want to earn they money back when it has mixed-reviews.
One holdover which is noteworthy is ‘Long Shot’. The Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron film didn’t debut well last weekend, taking $9.7M, but is looking at a super-sweet drop of just 19% to take a $8.1M second weekend, enough for $22M in ten days. All of a sudden, this one could just break even.
Here are the weekend estimates based on the Friday Estimates:
1. Avengers: Endgame – $62.5M
2. Detective Pikachu – $57.5M
3. The Hustle – $14M
4. Long Shot – $8.1M
5. Poms – $5.2M
UKFILMS 