After a couple of atrocious weeks, the box office is showing signs of life this weekend, with Disney/20th Century Studios’ Predator: Badlands on track for the best franchise opening since Alien vs. Predator back in 2004. That film managed to gross $38.3 million in its first weekend, and Badlands, according to Deadline, is looking at around $37 million. That’s a lot more than we predicted earlier this week, although adjusted for inflation, Badlands’ opening is relatively modest. Still, that’s a good sign for the franchise when you consider that the last movie, Prey, went straight to Hulu. With an A– CinemaScore rating, the buzz on Predator: Badlands is good. One imagines 20th Century Studios is happy with the result, which isn’t far off from what Alien: Romulus made last year. If done on a modest budget, these movies can be evergreen and profitable for the studio.
One thing worth noting is the film’s PG-13 rating, which has been divisive among fans. It seems Disney wanted to bring in a younger audience, although it’s hard to tell if that strategy worked. After all, Alien: Romulus was rated R, and it had a slightly better opening (although it debuted during the summer). A big test will be The Running Man next weekend, with Edgar Wright’s sci-fi actioner going for a hard R rating.
The Colleen Hoover adaptation Regretting You will likely land in second place, with about a $6.5 million gross, while The Black Phone 2 will be a distant third with $4.2 million. Sony Classics’ Nuremberg, which is going semi-wide this weekend, is expected to open with about $3.5 million. No numbers have been reported yet for the Sydney Sweeney–led boxing biopic Christy, which earned a pretty decent B+ CinemaScore rating. That’s more than we can say for the Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson–led Die My Love, which received an abysmal—but not unexpected—D+ rating from audiences who saw this challenging descent into madness last night.
We’ll be back with a full rundown of all the weekend’s grosses tomorrow. Are you seeing anything this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
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