Jordan Peele's Get Out is yet another directorial debut by a known actor that has snagged strong reviews and superb buzz. In that sense, it's little different from the likes of Sarah Polley's Away From Her, Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone and Lake Bell's In A World. It also shares something rather rare with Robert Redford's Ordinary People in that it's going to be a big box office win as well as a critical darling.
Blumhouse and QC Entertainment's comic thriller just snagged $10.842 million on its opening day, basically doubling its $5m production budget. It's just getting started, but Get Out is going to make a lot more than Stanley Tucci and Scott Campell's Big Night or Drew Barrymore's Whip It.
The grimly topical "social thriller," courtesy of Universal/Comcast Corp., about a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) taking a weekend trip to meet his white girlfriend's (Allison Williams) family, rode a wave of buzz stemming from a great trailer and an unending wave of rave reviews. Of note, Get Out has amassed 132 positive reviews out of 132 total reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the first live-action fictional film to snag a 100% on the site with well over 100 respective positive scores. We'll see if it can keep up the streak. But with an average critic score of 8.3/10, it's already the year's first live-action, multiplex-friendly critical darling.
With said $10.842 million Friday, including $1.8m in Thursday previews, the picture is aiming for a $28.5m debut weekend. But with said buzz and excellent word-of-mouth already forming (the film snagged an A- from CinemaScore), an over-$30m debut weekend is not out of the question. If it tops $26.411m (Don't Breathe's opening last August), it will be the second-biggest wholly original R-rated horror film debut ever, behind only Blumhouse's The Purge ($34m back in June of 2013).
And all of this is sans marquee movie stars, sans IP and sans a marquee horror director. To be fair, I might argue that the notion of a somewhat acclaimed/well-known comic artist tackling a horror movie added to the film's mystique. This was a sell based mostly on its primal (and all-too-easy to explain) concept, starting with a gangbusters first (and only... kudos on that front) trailer debuting during the BET Awards last October.
Along with a surprise Sundance premiere which elicited an initial round of rave reviews, and the usual prerelease press and digital marketing (courtesy of All Def Digital), Get Out got a somewhat unexpected boost from M. Night Shyamalan's Split. Said January release, which just crossed $220 million worldwide making it Blumhouse's biggest global grosser ever, was a prime platform for that buzzy Get Out trailer.
As I've always said, sometimes the best marketing is a good trailer attached to a popular hit playing to friendly demographics. Split was unexpectedly huge and leggy, opening with $40 million and legging it past $130m domestic, so a lot more horror-friendly folks got prime exposure to Get Out's prime piece of marketing.
There were two other wide releases this weekend, both of which played as glorified sacrifices to the post-theatrical/overseas box office gods.
Lionsgate snagged the Chinese-produced animated comedy Rock Dog for reasons that I can only presume are about building its library for the long haul. The $60 million production (!) was the most expensive Chinese-financed animated production ever, but it flopped there too earning just $5.7m. The film, based on a graphic novel by Zheng Jun, is going to make around $3.5 million this weekend after a mere Friday gross of around $890k. That will be lower than Norm of the North ($6.7m) and barely higher than The Wild Life ($3.3m).
Lionsgate and Summit obviously aren't too concerned about this one, what with La La Land making all the money and presumably winning most of the Oscars tomorrow. But if Lionsgate ever wants a real foothold in theatrical animation, they need to do... well, the opposite of this. To be fair, maybe that's not a big concern. After all, Alpha and Omega made $50 million worldwide back in 2010 and spawned five direct-to-DVD sequels with two more on the way and Shaun the Sheep was a critically-acclaimed $100m+ worldwide grosser in August of 2015.
But there is little silver lining for Collide. One of a number of films acquired from the ashes of Relativity, the Open Road pick up will barely make $1.5 million this weekend after a Friday gross of around $540k. The Nicolas Hoult/Felicity Jones/Anthony Hopkins/Ben Kingsley car chase heist caper was shot years ago but was bounced around the release schedule (and retitled from Autobahn) for two years. The overall budget was $21.5m, most of which was covered via output deals and foreign sales, but Open Road is only on the hook for distribution.It has made $2.5m overseas thus far.
Truth be told, I'm shocked this ended up in theaters considering its status and its history, perhaps surviving merely on the hope that a post-Rogue One Felicity Jones might give it a boost. But, and this is a general free tip, if you're trying to bank on a now-famous actress who just starred as the lead in an action movie or franchise, those fans will be less willing to show up for a film where she plays the love interest/damsel-in-distress. Lionsgate learned that two years ago with American Ultra. Oh well, Collide is pretty forgettable, and it will soon be forgotten to the extent that it was ever known.
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