Kevin Hart-Bryan Cranston Pic ‘The Upside’ Draws Solid $1.1M Thursday Night; ‘Aquaman’ Surfs To $1B WW This Weekend

January 11, 2019

STXfilms’ release of Lantern Entertainment’s The Upside drew $1.1M last night from 7PM shows at 2,460 theaters. The Kevin Hart-Bryan Cranston remake of the French hit $426M-plus grossing film The Intouchables will play at 3,080 locations starting today with an eye on $10M-$14M by Sunday.

The Upside was mired in the legal fallout of the Weinstein Co. untangling, and originally premiered to a great response at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. Originally, TWC was planning to do an awards campaign around the film. In the wake of Lantern taking over TWC, STXfilms partnered with Lantern to handle global rights on the film, a story which Deadline exclusively reported. The Upside currently has a low 34% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s another weekend of the studios taking it easy with a majority of lower budget product hitting the marquee, some of it counter-programming. Two reasons why we’re not seeing fresh event product out there is because Warner Bros./DC’s Aquaman is still going strong with an estimated fourth weekend of $20M (-35%) plus Universal/BVI/Blumhouse’s Glass is poised to shatter MLK B.O. records next weekend. The Upside is here this weekend instead of next so that it can play into the MLK weekend, and get some momentum as Glass will soak up most of the air in the four-day holiday. We originally heard $70M for the four-day weekend on the M. Night Shyamalan-directed sequel, but other tracking services have it between $54M-$64M which is still extremely robust.

By Sunday, Aquaman should be $10M shy of the $300M mark stateside, but worldwide he’ll be thrusting himself past $1 billion worldwide.

Sony/Bona Film has the family canine film A Dog’s Way Home based on the W. Bruce Cameron novel, who also penned A Dog’s Purpose, which became an Amblin/Universal movie. Way Home is not a sequel. The pic earned $535K at 2,657 locations that started at 5PM. The studio is expecting a $9M-$10M opening. The pic, directed by Charles Martin Smith, cost a reported $18M net and will play at 3,090 locations. A Dog’s Purpose opened to $18.2M back in January 2017 and made $205M WW off a $22M budget before P&A. Rated PG, A Dog’s Way Home chronicles the heartwarming adventure of Bella, a dog who embarks on an epic 400-mile journey home after she is separated from her beloved human. Meanwhile, Sony’s PG-13 horror pic from last weekend Escape Room should do around $9M, -50%, in weekend 2 after making $23.5M in its first week.

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns will wedge herself in between the two with an expected $10M fourth weekend, -37%, for a running total of $153.4M.

Entertainment Studios also held previews for their 2017 TIFF acquisition Replicas last night which earned $200K at 1,630 theaters. Byron Allen picked up the North American rights to the Keanu Reeves sci-fi drama for $4M at the festival. The pic will have an impossible time breaking through this weekend with an 11% RT score and B.O. projection around $4M. Reeves plays a synthetic biologist, who after losing his family in a car accident, will stop at nothing to bring them back, even if it means pitting himself against a government-controlled laboratory, a police task force, and the physical laws of science.

We’re also apt to see some movement among the Golden Globe winners, specifically Golden Globe best drama picture and actor winner Bohemian Rhapsody which in weekend 11 expands from 1,080 to 1,334 sites with more than 750 of those playing a never-before experienced ‘sing-along’ version of the film which was a stunt that Fox did with The Greatest Showman last year. The Freddie Mercury biopic counts $195.3M at the domestic box office; Fox will get this to $200M.

Also Universal will expand Golden Globe best comedy winner Green Book gradually as we head into Oscar noms moving from 566 theaters to around 650 today. The Participant Media/DreamWorks co-production currently counts $36.4M at the domestic box office.

Annapurna is expanding Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk from 335 sites to 1,018 with an eye on $3.5M in weekend 5. The pic has grossed $5.3M to date. Last Sunday Regina King won best supporting actress at the Golden Globes for her portrayal of a mother who is determined to prove her son’s innocence as he faces rape charges.

In its third weekend, On the Basis of Sex from Focus Features, is breaking wide to 1,900 locations. Industry projections are around $8M. The movie, which stars Felicity Jones as a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg who takes on the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn laws on gender discrimination, has clocked $4.3M through 17 days of play.

Source: Read Full Article