There’s no two ways about it: Us is a blockbuster.
Jordan Peele’s hugely-anticipated follow-up to Get Out took in an estimated $70.2 million in its debut weekend, blasting past all expectations to claim the third-biggest opening weekend for an R-rated horror film ever behind 2017’s It ($123.4 million) and last year’s Halloween remake ($76.2 million). Additionally, it claimed the biggest debut ever for an original R-rated horror film, besting last year’s The Nun ($53.8 million). Elsewhere, 2019’s first major blockbuster, Disney/Marvel’s Captain Marvel, dropped to second place with a strong performance in its third weekend.
Propelled by a savvy marketing campaign, strong buzz out of SXSW, excellent critical notices, the relative dearth of major horror film releases this year, and audience goodwill from the massively-successful Get Out ($33.3 million opening, $176 million final), Us was always expected to do well, but its debut outperformed even the most bullish of predictions. We arguably haven’t seen a horror auteur like this come on the scene since M. Night Shyamalan, who shot to stardom on the strength of the hugely-successful The Sixth Sense before following it up with Unbreakable a year later. But not even Shyamalan managed to more than double the opening gross of his breakthrough film, as Peele has managed to do here, demonstrating just how much pent-up demand existed for the latter director’s sophomore effort. Of course, it bears pointing out that Us debuted in nearly 1,000 more theaters than Get Out, which partially explains its huge leap over that film’s opening-weekend gross.
That pent-up demand represents an interesting test for Us, which massively benefitted from the critical and commercial success of Get Out but will likely be far more front-loaded than that film, which dipped a tiny 15% in its second weekend. Given how ardent Peele’s fanbase clearly is (Us enjoyed the best opening day of any original R-rated horror film with $29.06 million on Friday), it’s reasonable to expect a much larger second-weekend drop here. It’s also worth noting that Us‘s “B” Cinemascore – while good for the genre – came in a bit lower than Get Out‘s “A-“, suggesting audiences weren’t quite as satisfied with the director’s latest effort, which is undeniably a more challenging and complex film than its predecessor. Still, Us‘s thematic ambiguity and twisty plot rewards repeat viewings, meaning it could theoretically benefit from fans making multiple trips to the theater to unpack some of Peele’s big ideas.
More to come…
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: <em>Us</em> Draws Blood w/ Monster $70.2M Debut appeared first on Boxoffice.
from Boxoffice
0 comments:
Post a Comment