USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

'Get Out' image courtesy of Blumhouse, QC Entertainment and Universal 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 we...

Kicking off the Thanksgiving holiday break with gusto, Disney’s animated adventure “Moana” opened with plenty of box office power and took in $2.6 million at Tuesday night preview showings starting at 7 p.m. in North America. The “Moana” gross doubled the $1.3 million Tuesday preview record set last year by Disney’s “The Good Dinosaur.” It’s also far above the $1.2 million preview gross from “Frozen,” the $1.4 million Thursday preview total for “Big Hero 6” and the $1.7 million Thursday preview for “Zootopia” in March. “Moana” is expected to easily top the holdover numbers for “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday along with the openings for Brad Pitt’s thriller “Allied,” Billy Bob Thornton’s raucous comedy “Bad Santa 2” and Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes comedy-drama “Rules Don’t Apply.” “Moana,” centered on the journey of a Polynesian teenage girl, is expected to dominate moviegoing with about $75 million at 3,875 locations d...

UPDATE with more Thursday numbers:  Sony’s Screen Gems/Stage 6’s R-rated horror film  Don’t Breathe   drew  $1.875 million  from previews last night starting at 7 PM. That’s a great start that inches out the $1.8M earned by both last month’s  Lights Out  and  Don’t Breathe  director Fede Alvarez’s previous movie, 2013’s  Evil Dead. Evil Dead would go on to post a $25.8M opening, largely fueled by the franchise’s fervent fan base.  Don’t Breathe ‘s business will be in the spirit of such previous late August horror debuts as  Jeepers Creepers  ($13M) and Focus Features/Blumhouse’s  Sinister 2 , which posted $850K on its preview night before taking in a $10.5M FSS. Roadside Attractions’ Obamas first-date movie  Southside With You  and The Weinstein Company’s Roberto Duran biopic  Hands Of Stone , both platform releases, will not release Thursday numbers and will fo...