SUNDAY, 12:40AM: There it is. There’s that great word of mouth working in Kong: Skull Island‘s favor.
In late night industry estimates, the Warner Bros./Legendary monster movie is +18% from Friday’s $20.2M for a Saturday of $23.9M putting the great ape’s opening between $58.5M-$60.7M. On the high end, that’s a 35% improvement on the pic’s projections four weeks ago, and $10M higher from where we originally thought Kong would land.
Warner Bros.
Reviewers already knew Kong: Skull Island was a fun ride different from other Kongs, and for moviegoers to believe it, they simply needed to experience the movie. Kong could capitalize on another recent B.O. trend: Well-reviewed movies like Universal/Blumhouse’s Get Out and 20th Century Fox’s Logan have experienced decent first Sunday holds (both those titles dipped 22% from Saturday). Given that, there might be a chance that Kong bests what’s expected to be a -33% decline.
True, a $60M No. 1 opening in March is noteworthy, and we’ve seen other movies like Divergent 1 & 2 open to $52M-plus during this month, but damn, Kong: Skull Island is bloody expensive at $185M along with an estimated global P&A of $136M putting a cloud over its profitability. And that’s what unfortunately deflates any major celebration of the gorilla’s No. 1 opening.
Foreign through three days is at $27.5M and Kong might come in well under $85M abroad for the weekend. That will make it a steep climb to the $529M worldwide B.O. which yielded a profit for WB/Legendary’s Godzilla after ancillaries. Japan and China open later this month, and despite the latter country’s Tencent Pictures being involved in Kong: Skull Island, the movie isn’t a Chinese co-production, therefore it’s subjected to the typical rental for U.S. pics that’s between 25%-27%. We deconstructed Kong: Skull Island on Friday, and aside from Logan and Get Out stealing the monkey’s money this weekend, the biggest challenge for the latest iteration of this classic Hollywood brand is King Kong himself.
Warner Bros.
It wasn’t too long ago that Warner Bros. over-indexed on another dusty, expensive Hollywood property during its opening weekend run: the July 4th weekend opener The Legend of Tarzan. It too arrived in theaters with a huge $180M production cost (just $5M shy of Kong: Skull Island‘s). The Village Roadshow co-production was expected to post a low $30M four-day take, but WB pushed it to $46.6M. Critics didn’t love Tarzan as much as Kong: Skull Island, 36% Rotten to 78% Certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Both Kong and Tarzan earned very good CinemaScores (Tarzan an A-, Kong with various demos awarding it A or A-). Tarzan legged out to a 3.2 multiple off its 3-day of $38.5M to $126.6M, and Kong could generate a similar multiple with an end result well north of $150M stateside (Beauty and the Beast will definitely take a bite out of his legs next weekend). But again, in light of Tarzan‘s budget, it was very hard to get excited about the movie’s overperformance: Film finance sources inform us that Tarzan was below breakeven after all ancillaries despite making $356.7M at the worldwide B.O.
Universal
When Peter Jackson’s King Kong opened in December 2005, that beast too was slow out of the gate, minting a $50M FSS and $66M five-day. It’s clear that Kong: Skull Island will be well ahead of that amount on Tuesday, especially with schools and colleges off. Jackson’s King Kong posted a 4.36 multiple off its FSS and finaled domestic at $218M off an A- CinemaScore, but that movie had holiday foot-traffic on its side, which always carries uber-high multiples with it.
Logan also had a great Saturday seeing a 59% rise over Friday for a $16.5M Saturday, putting the Wolverine R-rated threequel at $39M in its second weekend, down 56% for a 10-day cume of $153.8M.
Get Out ran past $100M on Saturday, the fastest Blumhouse title to hit that mark in 16 days, beating Split‘s 19 days to the mark. Pic brought in $8.7M-$8.9M for the day, +46% over Friday for a $21.2M-$21.4M third weekend and running total of $111M-plus.
