SATURDAY AM: In a an autumn where prestige awards potential isn’t working, nor attempted tentpoles like Tron: Ares, Sony/Crunchyroll anime proves its merit again with its latest Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc which is now looking at a $15.5M-$17M opening after an $8.5M Friday, powered by an A CinemaScore from fans.
It will be interesting to see if the audience expands today as the fanbase for this movie are shouting its praises to the sky with an 82% definite recommend on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak.
This is the ninth anime movie to open north of $10M, which is a big deal, because not every Japanese animation IP works on the big screen. What’s great about this is that Sony has a new solid franchise in the wake of Demon Slayer. Even if this drops tonight in typical front-loaded anime fashion, it’s another No. 1 win for Sony this year with non-traditional motion picture fare. Imax and premium large format screens are revving 58% of Chainsaw‘s weekend with the West, South and South Central the best grossing regions and a very good swath of diverse demos all around in 32% Caucasian, 29% Latino and Hispanic, a very strong 20% Asian American and 13% Black. The AMC Empire in NYC is the top grossing theater with close to $45K.
Though a title acquired during the Brian Robbins regime, Regretting You, at Paramount is doing its job in attracting 83% female moviegoers with a $13M 2nd place opening after a $5.2M Friday and B CinemaScore. In PostTrak exits, women love the movie giving it a 77% definite recommend. Regretting You isn’ the most popular of the Colleen Hoover novels in the It Ends With Us sense of the word, and it doesn’t have the whole Blake Lively-Ryan Reynolds post-Deadpool & Wolverine marketing halo effect, so take that into account. Paramount snapped up the $30 million financed production post the Hoover It Ends With Us box office fiesta in summer 2024 (that moving making $351 million worldwide); Amazon MGM Studios took the author’s novel Verity while Universal snapped up Reminders of Him.
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Diverse demos for Regretting You are 50% Caucasian, 36% Latino and Hispanic, 6% Asian American and 5% Black. Women over 25 led at 45%, with women under 25 at 39%.
Distrib sources are complaining that the World Series is cutting into male moviegoers this weekend. Then why the hell are you booking movies aimed at men during a juggernaut time when guys are stolen away? Good on Paramount for capitalizing on the opportunity to book a female-driven title on the marquee.
Which turns us to the subject of bad release dates for what should be older male skewing movies: 20th Century Studios’ Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere which has now shifted its range to $9M-$10M (many are seeing $9M) after a B+ CinemaScore in fourth with Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 second weekend ahead in 3rd with $12M (-56%). Though toward the low-end of its tracking range, this ain’t good for the net $55M Jeremy Allen White-Jeremy Strong starring production. On the upside, the movie has a 60% definite recommend on PostTrak, so we’ll see if this improves. Why isn’t this brand-name rock performer movie not being released over Christmas ala last year’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown when a bigger audience is available? While older Springsteen fans showed up last night at 40% over 55 (the pic’s biggest demo) and 59% over 45, it was clearly not in bulk judging from the grosses. Also, Springsteen was largely female leaning movie at 52%. Women over 25 bought tickets at 46% and men over 25 went at 42%. Overall, this is very Caucasian leaning movie at 85% with few diverse demos showing up. We’ll get into this more as the weekend goes on, but off the bat, the release date isn’t doing this movie any favors.
Premium large format screens for the Scott Cooper directed title are repping a quarter of the weekend’s gross with best areas of play in the East and Midwest. AMC Lincoln Square is the top grossing location with over $32K so far.
NEON’s Shelby Oaks gets a C+ after a $1.1M Friday on its way to around $2.3M now. Best areas for the Chris Stuckmann directed movie are the West, South Central, and East with AMC’s Boston Common 19 the top grossing venue stateside with just over $7K. Fifty-three percent guys, 74% 18-34. This is a standard NEON niche genre play.
Overall ticket sales are clocking an estimated $75.4M, which is +8% from last weekend, but down 20% from a year ago when Venom: The Last Dance opened to $51M.
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FRIDAY PM: Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc is slicing its way to the top of the box office with a good $8M today for what’s shaping up to be a $14 million-plus weekend.
While at the high end of its $11M-$14M projections, and a clear No. 1, the caution here is that it’s the first night of the World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers taking on the Toronto Blue Jays. Los Angeles is the No. 1 market for anime movies.
RelishMix reports that the social media reach on Chainsaw Man is massive at a half billion, 6x above anime genre norms across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined with gigantic video views counts on YouTube of 351 million and counting. Note Chainsaw Man‘s reach on social is 2.5x more than Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle before its opening which stood at 200 million.
Reports the social media stat org, “Convo runs positive for Chainsaw Man-The Movie: Reze Arc, with fans losing their minds over animation studio MAPPA’s cinematic polish, the faithfulness to the manga’s art style, and Kenshi Yonezu’s soundtrack. Theatrical worthiness is a recurring theme, with audiences insisting this arc had to be a movie. The chatter even positions it above competing anime events, with praise like ‘compared to the recent Infinity Castle, Reze arc was kick ass—would watch in theaters again’ and ‘I absolutely love how loyal they stayed to the art style, it feels like the manga came to life.’
The following music video alone is racking up close to 68 million views on YouTube.
Second is a three-way race between 20th Century Studios’ Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (3,460 theaters), Paramount’s Colleen Hoover movie Regretting You (3,393 theaters) and the second weekend of Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 (3,460 theaters) each looking at $10.8M-$12M. For Black Phone 2, that hold-range is better than -60% with at least $47M by Sunday, which would be $400K less than Black Phone at the same point in time of its ten-day run.
Fifth is the third weekend of Disney’s Tron: Ares at 2,940 theaters with $1.3M today and $4M+ for the weekend.
Neon’s horror thriller from Chris Stuckmann, Shelby Oaks, is spotting $1.1M today for a $2.5M take at 1,823 sites. This is in the range of Neon’s summer 2024 horror title, Cuckoo which opened to $3M.
FRIDAY AM: Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc revved up $3.4 million in previews Thursday in screenings that began at 4 p.m. at 2,500 locations.
By the way, that preview number is close to the $3.8M posted by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train back in April 2021, on its way to a three-day total f $21.2M as movie theaters were reopening from Covid. That title, released by Funimation/Aniplex, had a Friday of $9.5M.
The Tatsuya Yoshihara-directed Chainsaw Man based on the popular manga is expected to ring up $11M+ in a weekend that might now be too close to call with Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 with an expected $12M+ second frame.
Chainsaw Man is 100% fresh from 18 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 99% audience score.
Meanwhile, 20th Century Studios’ $55M Scott Cooper-directed Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere strummed $850,000. The movie is expected to bring in $9M-$11M. Note that preview take is under the $1.4M Christmas preview gross of Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, which went electric over the holidays with a $7.2M opening day, $11.6M 3-day and 5-day total of $23.2M. Springsteen is opening at 3,460 theatres including 250 Imax screens and 750 Premium Large Format screens. Critics aren’t wowed by this rock performer biopic at 61% fresh, but fans last night enjoyed it better at 85%.
Jeremy Allen White plays Bruce Springsteen and Jeremy Strong plays his manager Jon Landau in a semi-biopic about The Boss recording the personal 1982 album Nebraska which preceded his global phenomenon Born in the U.S.A.
Paramount is not reporting grosses on Regretting You given its limited run in under 500 theaters last night, with one showtime for the A Night of No Regrets fan event that included a Q&A with cast and director Josh Boone with a special performance by Hannah Cohen. Nonetheless, sources say the movie did better than Springsteen last night. Regretting You was forecasted at $9M-$11M this weekend in what is the second Colleen Hoover novel feature adaptation to hit the screen after the massive success of It Ends With Us. Critics don’t like the schmaltziness of Regretting You at 34% on RT, but there was also never beginning with them on It Ends With Us which they threw Kleenex boxes at with 54%.
Neon this frame has the psychological thriller Shelby Oaks, which did $515K from combined mystery screenings and last night’s previews. The movie is expected to file in the low single digits.
Black Phone 2 posted $1.6M yesterday, off 11% from Wednesday, for a first week of $36M, up 3% from its 2022 first chapter.
The rest of the top 5:
1.) Black Phone 2 (Uni) 3,411 theaters, Thu $1.6M (-11% from Wed), Wk $36M/Wk 1
2.) Tron: Ares (Dis) 4,000 theaters, Thu $698K (-22%), Wk $15M (-65%), Total $58.4M/Wk 2
3.) Good Fortune (LG) 2,990 theaters Thu $487K (-15%), Wk $8.7M/Wk 1
4.) One Battle After Another (WB) 2,532 theaters, Thu $350K (-18%) Wk $5.5M (-45%), Total $63.4M/Wk 4
5.) Roofman (Par) 3,370 theaters, Thu $346K (-17%), Wk $5.5M (-53%),Total $17.3M/Wk 2