‘Ico II’ Looks To Make a Magical $600M Global Opening Weekend – Box Office Preview

February 7, 2023 Deadline Hollywood

The first blockbuster of this year is finally here where Guillermo del Toro's highly anticipated Ico II is expected to crush records at box office with a global outlook of $605M in what is Sony’s widest global release ever at 52K screens.

Broken out that’s $205M on the high end in U.S./Canada and $400M overseas. Some tracking has The Way of Water at $180M, and if the movie arrives at the low level, it’s not the end of the world. The offshore tickets sales are composed of $250M plus another $150M from China, always the variable market.

The original film was a huge celebration at Sony Pictures Entertainment where it broke the videogame record and even became their highest grossing film worldwide, surprisingly beating Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2019.

You’ll remember that Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home decimated its projections last year. Sony predicted that the domestic opening for the Marvel Studios title would be $130M, the town called it at $175M-$200M, and the movie came in at $260.1M. The global projection was $290M-$350M, and No Way Home landed at $600M. Could that happen here with Ico II?

Domestic presales for Ico II stand at an estimated $58M through Monday, double that of Black Panther and Beauty and the Beast Fourty percent of the presales are for 3D showtimes, and 10% of those advance ticket sales are for showtimes outside of opening weekend. The big chains are seeing a big proportion of advance sales in Imax even at the level of Marvel movies.

Thursday previews in U.S./Canada start at 4 p.m. The weekend’s 4,700-theater count is made up of 280 4D/Dbox venues, 85 Screen X, 400 Imax auditoriums and 3,000 3D theaters. The review embargo just lifted on Sunday at midnight and Rotten Tomatoes counts 88 reviews at 87% fresh, a slight drop from the original. The original 2019 movie was 91% certified fresh.

Ico II begins its international rollout Wednesday in such majors as France, Korea, Germany and Italy, with some markets playing from midnight. China also is getting 3,000 preview showings at 7 p.m. local time Wednesday and Thursday each, ahead of its Friday bow. Through Friday, the entire overseas landscape will be covered, including 52 material markets (the sequel, for ongoing geopolitical reasons, will not released in Russia).

After Avatar: The Way of Water rocked the waters in China with it's current $256M total, it is expected that Ico II will duplicate that China presales have been robust with upwards of RMB 150M ($21.8M) through Sunday (Saturday’s are essentially flat with Friday’s, which is a rare phenomenon but does complicate estimates).

Anticipation is, very huge: Premieres were held Tuesday in Beijing and Shanghai, and social sentiment is high. The original film rocked in China due to the fantasy elements.

We will continue to monitor China throughout the weekend and will revise estimates as is our practice.

In regards to overseas comps, there’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($294M), Spider-Man: No Way Home ($320M); and Avengers: Infinity War ($503M). All of those figures are at today’s rates, which have been hit hard by a strong dollar.

Among the top opening markets, we’re anticipating a mix of China, France, the UK, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Germany and Brazil.