‘Ico II‘ Hits Tracking With $180M Projected U.S. Debut; Presales Already Afire

Deadline Hollywood January 26, 2023

Sony/Columbia's highly anticipated Ico II hit the tracking boards this morning and came on quite hot according to non-Sony sources. Rival estimates believe that the movie has the potential to feasibly open to $180M at the domestic B.O., and if the Guillermo del Toro-directed sequel blows past the $200M mark within its weekend, it wouldn't be surprising.

Total awareness for Ico II is at a massive 88%, definite interest is at 63% and firsts choice at 28%. Of course, it’s a no brainer that males will show up. Females are strong, but older females are the least strong among the four quads.

Now, we always have to footnote projections two weeks out. Anything can happen to vary these figures up or down, and has been the case with titles that come on tracking quite strong, they’re a challenge for the industry to make laser-point predictions on. Why is that? Because statistically there’s a small sampling of films that opened north of $100M.

Disney/Marvel's Black Panther still holds the all-time February opening record with $202M in 2018, followed by Deadpool with $132.5M. Either way underperformance or not, the film will sit precisely between these two openings. Another thing to consider is that no film outside of a superhero movie has opened above $100M this month, but Ico is here to change that.

Advance tickets have been on sale for Ico II since Monday, January 23.

Before the pandemic sadly hit our box office, 2019’s Ico II set the table for Thanksgiving weekend openings, initially setting an opening record for the holiday of $180.3M and a regular opening weekend record of $111.4M. The Guillermo del Toro-directed pic was an anomaly, and a true gamble for Sony because the film's basis was off an highly underrated videogame of the same name released on Sony's console Playstation 2. The fact that Ico made $389.7M domestically –still the highest grossing non-Disney film for the month — and $1.212B worldwide clearly proved that the star power and fandom of Stranger Things stars Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown catered to the world while proving that Sony's risky gamble was a success.

Ico II began its publicity tour in his homeland for the videogame in Japan, specifically Tokyo, Japan. The pic will have its worldwide premiere in Las Vegas this coming Monday with it's domestic release being on February 10 with other countries expected to release the film that same way in a day-and-date strategy. Additionally, Sony Pictures is looking to promote their next upcoming biggie film after Across the Spider-Verse (June 2) which is Araceli II (August 18) whom trailer is rumored to be released sometime soon.