Numbers have begun rolling in for the weekend and seem to be pretty much in line with our predictions from Thursday as the remake/ Broadway adaptation Mean Girls is looking at a lucrative weekend of around $30 million with its 4-day gross in the $33 million range (as Monday is the holiday Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States). Despite some moderate love from critics, the film is seeing a just okay B cinemascore and an audience score of 71% which still is positive, but not as high as new releases tend to be when audiences genuinely enjoy a film.
Our own Tyler Nichols said this 2024 version improved on the original in several ways in his 7/10 review. This is one review where Mr. Nichols and I are in total disagreement. I found this new Mean Girls to be a pale shot for shot remake of the original, recycling all of the old jokes while adding nothing truly memorable to make this one an enjoyable watch. Sure, it had songs from the Broadway show, but for me, none of the songs stood out or were memorable. I will again sing the praises of the new Janis as I thought Auli’i Cravalho did a great job making the character her own. While the rest of the cast did a valiant effort, it just came across as them trying to mimic the previous performances rather than truly making them their own. I think the translation from screen to stage worked because of that live environment where the same jokes from the movie were a welcome call back to the original film. When bringing the stage musical back to the screen, they needed to figure out something a bit more original to make it stand out. At the very least, we got more Tim Meadows and Tina Fey, and more Tim Meadows and Tina Fey is always a good thing!
The great news for this new Mean Girls is that they kept the budget in check, just $36 million, and with this debut in the $30 million range, Mean Girls should easily cruise to a nice financial gain when all is said and done. Even though I did not like this particular version, I would be all for a sequel that could expand the story into territory we hadn’t yet seen. Perhaps a mash-up sequel where it functions as both a sequel to this film and bring back the original cast for a sequel to that film all in one movie, now that would be something to get genuinely excited for!
Second place is going to the Jason Statham/ David Ayer action revenge tale The Beekpeeper with an estimated $17 million weekend and around $20 million for its 4-day holiday take. That number is actually quite a bit higher than was expected and shows that the marketing department did its job in selling this movie as just an old school action film where one man takes out his enemies. If Mr. Tyler Nichols and I disagreed on Mean Girls, we are fully in sync on Beekeeper as he said it was a fun time at the movies that isn’t perfect film but is a perfect escape from the world, in his 7/10 review. Fully agree! I also believe that this movie gives a great argument against something we have seen across the internet over the past few years: the notion that the “movie star” is dead. I believe The Beekeeper is doing as well as it is because people want to watch Jason Statham kick ass for two hours. He is putting butts in seats and in turn giving them what they want with a solid 92% audience score and a B+ cinemascore.
The remainder of the top five are your holdover titles that are continuing to kill it in the long game as Wonka is expected to do around $9 million for the weekend (around $11 million for the 4-day weekend) while the R rated comedy Anyone But You continues its very surprising run with another $8 million in ticket sales (around $10 million 4-day take) and the animated birds of Migration show the power of a good family film in the market place with another $5 million ($6.5 4-day gross) added to its soon to be $100 million domestic take.
Outside the top five you can expect the new biblical comedy The Book of Clarence to open with a very disappointing $2-$3 million. The film is doing so poorly, it doesn’t even have an audience score yet for me to report! You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 7/10 review here. While Night Swim is expected to have a significant drop off.
Did you see any of the new releases yet (I know it is still Saturday morning, but maybe you went last night)? If so, what were your thoughts. Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full run down on this weekend’s box office.