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Sony/3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine’s Where the Crawdads Sing is off to a great start in the pandemic, particularly for a female-skewing property, with $2.3M off Thursday showtimes that began at 3PM in 3,150 theaters.
Again, previews aren’t always a perfect science for smaller movies at the box office, especially during Covid, but it’s interesting to note that the film came in not too far under the $2.5M that the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum romantic comedy adventure The Lost City made on its Thursday night in 3,400 theaters off 4PM showtimes back in March. That movie opened to $30.4M in the wake of a hot premiere at SXSW. Though it pulled in 61% women, it was broader skewing in its appeal than Crawdads here, which in earlier week projections, was set to $9M-$10M. We’ll see if those numbers go up.
Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder is expected to win the weekend with $50M in its second go-round.
Where the Crawdads Sings’ Thursday night audience loved it with a 93% positive audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and received a 4.5-star PostTrak exit.
Another testament to the popularity of Where the Crawdads Sings among its readers; the pic based on the Delia Owens book is blowing away several previews for movies based on Nicholas Sparks’ books, i.e. The Choice ($290K, pre-pandemic number) and The Longest Ride ($625K). It’s proof, at least as of last night, that the younger female demo haven’t had a movie directly targeted at them for a while. As of January, Where the Crawdads Sing had sold over 12M copies.
Meanwhile, Paramount’s animated movie Paws of Fury didn’t see a robust start with only $505K off showtimes that began at 3PM at 2,650 locations. The pic opens today at 3,475 locations and is only expected to gross around $10M. Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys saw $1.15M in previews before a $23.95M opening, but that was at a time when there wasn’t an abundance of family fare on the marquee. Lots of competition here: We got Thor: Love and Thunder in theaters, which did around $8.2M yesterday, -7% from Wednesday for a $187.1M running total. Then there’s Universal/Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: Rise of Gru which is still flexing its muscle with $5.4M yesterday, -11% from Wednesday, for a $236.5M total in week 2.
In third yesterday was Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick which did $1.9M, -6% from Wednesday for a $605.7M running total at the end of week 7.
Warner Bros.’ Elvis did $1.58M yesterday, -12% sending its total in week 3 to $98.5M.
Universal/Blumhouse’s The Black Phone earned $919K in its third Thursday for a running total of $66.7M.