Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore conjures up $6 million in Thursday night previews

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore began its magical box office journey in Thursday previews last night and the figures are coming in below its predecessors.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore grossed $6 million in Thursday night previews that actually began before the evening at 2:00 PM at 3,350 locations, per Deadline. The gross comes in lower than the preview figures of 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($8.75 million, $74.4 million opening) and 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ($7.3 million, $62.1 million opening). Even though this is higher than the $5 million made by Sonic The Hedgehog 2 in previews, The Secrets of Dumbledore will not be seeing the same $72 million+ start as the Sonic sequel. This film is going to be frontloaded in a much bigger way and now it’s a matter if it can exceed opening in the $50 million range or will it come in below that figure. I predicted a $40 million second-place finish for the movie behind Sonic 2 and that could still happen if the fan rush doesn’t spread through the weekend. Overseas is where this film will make most of its money so those figures will be watched more closely. The Rotten Tomatoes score has dropped to 51% since writing up predictions for this one but the audience score is sitting pretty at 84% so far.

In other box office news, Father Stu opened at $1.55 million on Wednesday, its first day of release, and pulled in an estimated $765,000 yesterday at 2,705 locations. That’s a decline of 51% from its opening day and Sony will be hoping that the movie will level off throughout the Easter weekend and bring in audiences looking for something a bit more uplifting to watch. The film is rotten at 45% on Rotten Tomatoes but it does have a promising 94% audience score so the hope is that word of mouth will start working a bit more heading into the weekend.

What are YOUR thoughts on the box office race so far? Check back throughout the weekend for the latest box office updates!