Taylor Swift, the pop icon who’s untouchable and burns brighter than the sun, has no plans to let go of her stranglehold on the box office when Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon takes the stage. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour banked $92.3M in its first weekend, with theaters pausing showtimes between Monday and Thursday. While the concert film could take a 60%-70% dip in its second weekend with $27M-$37M, it could be enough to walk all over Scorsese’s latest epic at the box office.
Analysts watching Killers of the Flower Moon predict a $20M-$25M opening for Scorsese’s gripping drama. Considering the film’s 3-hour, 26-minute runtime, that’s an impressive take for a theater experience that should come with complimentary adult diapers (or, at the very least, an intermission). While some of the year’s most significant films have been victims of the SAG-AFTRA strike and an inability to promote new projects, Killers of the Flower Moon carries the Scorsese name. The legendary filmmaker’s name is enough to turn heads and court Scorsese die-hards to theaters, but will it be enough for casual moviegoers?
Previews for Killers of the Flower Moon kick off at 2 p.m. on Thursday, with the epic playing in 3,621 markets, with Imax and PLF screens adding to the film’s real estate.
Directed by Scorsese and written for the screen by Eric Roth and Scorsese, based on David Grann’s best-selling book of the same name, Killers of the Flower Moon is set in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.
Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Departed), Robert De Niro (Raging Bull, Cape Fear), Lily Gladstone (First Cow, Certain Woman), Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog, The Irishman), Cara Jade Myers (Rutherford Falls, Proximity), JaNae Collins (Reservation Dogs, Furky), Jillian Dion (Legion, Alaska Daily), John Lithgow (Cliffhanger, Third Rock From the Sun), Brendan Fraser (The Whale, Doom Patrol), and Tantoo Cardinal (Wind River, Dances with Wolves) star as primary cast members.
Hailing from Apple Studios, Killers of the Flower Moon was produced alongside Imperative Entertainment, Sikelia Productions, and Appian Way. Producers are Scorsese, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, and Daniel Lupi, with DiCaprio, Rick Yorn, Adam Somner, Marianne Bower, Lisa Frechette, John Atwood, Shea Kammer and Niels Juul serving as executive producers.
Following its global theatrical run, the film will debut on Apple TV+. The wide theatrical release of Killers of the Flower Moon will also include IMAX theatres, for which the film will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience with proprietary IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology.