“You’re not actually going to allow them to do that, are you?”
Such are the gripes across the City of Angels from rival distributors about Sony’s public-facing acknowledgment that they’ve previewed Gran Turismo over the last two weekends, lagniappe box office which will be included in Friday’s total.
Yesterday starting from 2PM showtimes, the feature take of the Sony Playstation game earned $1.4M at 3,156 theaters, including PLF and Imax monies. The Neill Blomkamp directed movie has a shot at No. 1 this weekend making $12M-$15M at 3,800 theaters.
Sony at the end of July decided at the last minute to move Gran Turismo‘s wide opening from Aug. 11 to Aug. 25. This was for several reasons: one to get away from the heat of Barbenheimer, and also to create word of mouth on a movie that doesn’t have its stars to promote due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Sony was transparent with the town that they were holding previews. It’s not always public knowledge when a studio is holding advance screenings for a movie.
In major markets such as LA, cinemas have been playing Gran Turismo on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; two weekends back-to-back. We’ve heard that preview cash has amounted to $3M+, but Sony hasn’t verified that yet.
As far as those rivals whining about Sony including the cash in this weekend’s gross — let he without sin cast the first stone. Y’all have juiced your weekends and Fridays with preview money going back to forever. Hello! New Line’s Shazam back in 2019 boasted a preview figure of $9.2M which included a robust advance Fandango sponsored screening. Paramount and eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves made $5.6M in previews which included Thursday showtimes (starting at 3PM), as well as Amazon sneaks among other pre-screenings. That studio was holding advance screenings for Dungeons and Dragons because they believed in the film and also wanted to get the word out. The Batman preview figure included $4M Tuesday previews in its overall preview figure of $17.6M back in March 2022. I can keep listing and boring you.
The Rotten Tomatoes critics score is now 60% fresh on Gran Turismo, however, audiences love it: Comscore/Screen Engine Postrak exits show 5 stars for general audiences, five stars from parents and 4 1/2 from kids under 12. Thursday audience saw 87% general audience, 6% parent and 7% kids. Guy leaning at 68% yesterday with the 18-34 set at 50%. Guys over 25 (46%) and women over 25 (22%) were the leading demos and respectively gave the pic its best scores of 90% and 96%. Gran Turismo before P&A cost $60M.
How much does the second annual National Cinema Day on Sunday dilute the box office? That’s the question and while we will have some indicators soon, the overall verdict will be known on Monday morning. All showtimes for all movies and formats are $4. Whose going?
Briarcliff Entertianment’s faith-based Dennis Quaid movie The Hill did $110K last night in previews. That pic, along with other wide entries Roadside Attractions/StudioCanal/Picture Company’s Retribution and Bleecker Street’s Golda are all expected to do in the single digits.
The rest of Thursday went as follows, ranked by Thursday gross:
- Barbie (WB) 4,003 theaters Thurs $2.3M (-10% from Wed) Week $31.9M (-40%), Total $577.7M/Wk 5
- Blue Beetle (WB) 3,871 theaters Thurs $1.34M (-35%) Week $33.5M/Wk 1
- Oppenheimer (Uni) 3,321 theaters Thurs $1.28M (-4%) Week $16.3M (-44%), Total $291M/Wk 5
- TMNT: Mutant Mayhem (Par) 2,312 theaters, Thurs $770K (-14%), Week $12.3M (-46%), Total $92M/Wk 3
- Strays (Uni) 3,223 theaters Thurs $628K (-9%), Week $11.4M/Wk 1