'Stella' Flockin to Upset 'Hailey' with $37M-$40M; Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero’ Rolling To $17M-$20M Opening; ‘Beast’ Seeing $10M – Friday Midday Box Office Update

By Anthony D'Alessandro

August 19, 2022 12:57 pm

Friday Midday: The Culver City studio is on course to have a surprise battle for No.1 with it's animated spin-off film Stella: An Angry Birds Movie, with that movie currently looking at a $12M-$15M today (including those $4.2M previews) for a $37M-$40M take at 4,100 theaters overperforming even the highest projections of $25M. Meanwhile Crunchyroll is expected to take third with its anime sequel Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which is looking at $8M-$10M today (including those $4M previews) for a $17M-$20M take at 3,130 theaters.

Meanwhile, MGM's animated flick Hailey at 4,004 is seeing $9M today, -29% from a week ago, and a $35-$40M weekend, -33% on the high end, for a $263.7M running total at the high end.

Universal’s Idris Elba movie, Beast, is clocking $4.1M today and eyeing a $10M 3-day at 3,743 locations.

A year ago during Weekend 33, Disney released the Ryan Reynolds 20th Century action comedy Free Guy to a great $28.3M (it legged out to $121.6M domestic) — a reminder that it’s not the month that’s sluggish necessarily as kids return to school, rather the lack of product now, duh.

Sony’s Bullet Train at 3,781 is seeing $2M today, -47% from a week ago, and a $7M-$7.5M third weekend, -44% on the high end, for a $68.4M running total at the high end.

Warner Bros.’ DC League of Super-Pets is sixth at 3,537 sites, with an estimated $1.4M Friday, -29%, and $5.1M fourth weekend, -27%, with a $66.8M running total.

Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick in Weekend 13 at 2,969 locations, is eyeing $1.4M today, also -29%, and a $5M 3-day for a running total of $682.5M by Sunday.

Friday AM: We’re hearing from industry sources that Sony's spin-off over-indexed with an estimated $4.2M in Thursday night previews, not too far from Crunchyroll’s sequel Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero which notched an estimated $4M in Thursday night previews, while trouncing Universal’s Idris Elba lion movie Beast, which did $925K at 2,900 theaters. All 3 began previews at 5 p.m. Thursday. Crunchyroll and Sony is sending out an official update tomorrow.

Stella's start make it have a decent shot of beating Hailey for No. 1 with a possible $19M with Super Hero‘s start last night has a shot at getting it near $15M, while the fate of Beast, despite being 72% fresh among Rotten Tomatoes critics, is likely in the single-digit range at 3,743 theaters. Ouch. Stella has an exclusive 100-day theatrical window being booked in 4,100 and flying off with Imax, 4DX, Dolby, 3D, and D-box while Super Hero is on a 90-day theatrical window and booked in 3,100 theaters (3,900 screens).

Stella 's Thursday night is miles away from the original Angry Birds movie's $800K Thursday night but slightly behind Hailey 's $5.2M Thursday night

Super Hero‘s Thursday night soars above the $2.88M Thursday grossed by Crunchyroll’s Jujutsu Kaisen 0 at 2,003 theaters back in March, which resulted in a 3-day weekend of $14.8M and total weekend-plus-previews figure of $17.6M. Super Hero is currently higher than Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer from March 2020, which did $3.8M in previews, before a $21.2M opening.

Beast‘s Thursday is just below the $1M earned by Paramount’s alligator horror title Crawl in its preview night, which translated to a $4.3M Friday, and $12M opening in July 2019. That said the Elba title is ahead of Universal’s Michael Bay movie, Ambulance, which ran up $700K on its Thursday before a lackluster $3.2M Friday, and $8.7M domestic start.

In regular ranked titles, Sony’s Bullet Train had a second Thursday of $1.25M at 4,357 theaters, -18% from Wednesday for a $19.9M second week and running total of $61M.

Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick did $870K at 3,181, -10% in its 12th Thursday for a week’s take of $10.8M and running total of $677.5M.

Third on Thursday went to Warner Bros.’ DC League of Super-Pets with $710K at 3,803, down 15% from Wednesday and a third week of $10.5M, -39%, and $61.7M running cume.

Fourth belonged to Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder at 3,175 with a $580K Thursday, -6% from Wednesday and a sixth week of $8M, running total of $328M.

Universal/Illumination Entertainment’s Minions: The Rise of Gru at 3,068 saw a $570K Thursday, -14% from Wednesday, for a seventh week of $7.7M and running total of $346.5M, +1.2% ahead of the latter animation studio’s highest domestic grossing movie, Despicable Me 2 at the same point in time — however that sequel ended its stateside run at $368M.