Numbers have begun pouring in for this first weekend of June and it appears we have another Super Mario Bros. Movie situation brewing. If you recall all the way back in April, Super Mario Bros was tracking to do roughly $87 million for the weekend, yet by Sunday that number had ballooned to a record breaking $146.3 million (while also securing the worldwide record for an animated opening.) I don’t think we are going to see an explosion like that with Spider-Man but original tracking had Across The Spider-Verse at around $80 million, in our predictions from Thursday we saw the writing on the wall and put our guesstimate at around the $110 million mark. The film managed an impressive $17.35 million in Thursday previews, making it the second best preview numbers ever for an animated title just behind The Incredible’s 2’s take of $18.5 million. That film would ultimately open at $182.6 million, but that was a highly anticipated Pixar sequel.
Right now all eyes are on Saturday’s numbers to see how front loaded, if at all, this film may be, as super hero movies tend to be heavily front loaded from eager fans. But it appears Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse may have cross over appeal to general audiences as online chatter has been heavy and positive since just before its release. The film currently has an audience score of 97% which means word of mouth will be solid. When I saw the film on Thursday, I did notice that when it ended, it seemed a lot of people were not aware this was a “Part 1” with the ending being, well, not an ending! Right now, box office prognosticators believe the film will ultimately top out at the $110 million mark for its opening weekend, but as that was our original prediction, and with the massive success we are seeing, I think we may see this one get to the $120 million mark, but again, Saturday numbers will be quite telling.
The other new release of the week, The Boogeyman, adapted from a short story by Stephen King, pulled in $1.1 million in Thursday previews, which isn’t that bad when you consider other recent successful horror films like Evil Dead Rise, Smile and M3GAN all pulled in just slightly more than that (M3GAN being the best of the bunch with a $2.7 million Thursday preview.) Those films all went on to have solid opening weekends while Boogeyman is looking to top out slightly over the $10 million mark. If this PG13 horror film, that our own Chris Bumbray said was aimed at the teenage market in his 6/10 review, can maintain even a fraction of what those films ultimately made, it will be a big win for theatrical over streaming as the film was originally intended to debut on the Hulu streaming service.
Disney will have bragging rights for the weekend as they will be the owners of spots two through four (as they own 20th Century Studios which released The Boogeyman) on the charts as The Little Mermaid is expected to ease in the mid 50% range with a low to mid $40 million take. That’s actually a fairly decent hold considering the competition the film was facing and will actually be outpacing the live action Aladdin by about $4 million by the end of the weekend in a day for day comparison. While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is expected to have a strong hold with another $10-$12 million.
Stateside, Fast X just doesn’t seem to have the same momentum as previous entries as it is looking to ease over 60% with its weekend take under $10 million, thank Dom for those international numbers which have the film over half a billion already. We’ll see if the franchise really calls it quits after the next film, although if Vin Diesel keeps feuding with every actor that comes on these movies, Fast 20 may just be Diesel in a car driving by himself (although even that would pale in comparison to the superb film Locke which Tom Hardy should have been nominated for as it is one of the best performances in a film that I have ever seen!)
Have you had a chance to get to theaters yet or is it still on your list of things to do? Let us know what you saw (and how you liked it) in the comments section and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full rundown of this weekends box office numbers.