Thursday Night Previews: Dunkirk and Girls Trip Make Promising Starts
July 21, 2017
I was expecting Dunkirk to make about $4 million during previews and it made $5.5 million. Since its reviews are award-worthy and the film is aimed at a more mature target audience, it should have better legs than most similar films. Perhaps $60 million is more likely than I thought.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, on the other hand, earned $1.7 million during its previews. So far this summer, the average multiplier for previews to full weekend has been just over 10. However, it is very likely that Valerian won’t match that average, as the genre tends to be a little more front-loaded and its reviews have taken a real hit over night and have fallen to below the overall positive level. Even if it manages to have average legs, it will still miss expectations with $17 million. It will likely open below that.
Finally we get to Girls Trip, which also pulled in $1.7 million during its previews. Unfortunately for analysts, there haven’t been enough R-rated comedies aimed at African-American women to use that to judge the movie’s box office potential going forward. That said, this seems like really good news. Its reviews have slipped below 90% positive by a tiny margin, so its word-of-mouth should be fantastic. A $20 million opening would be disappointing at this point, which is impressive, as the film cost just $20 million to make. It could even open with closer to $30 million, which would be enough to get studios to greenlight similar films by Monday. Splitting the difference gives us a $25 million opening weekend. While Girls Trip won’t be the biggest new release of the weekend, it looks like it will be the most profitable in percentage terms, at least.
- Dunkirk Comparisons
- Girls Trip Comparisons
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Comparisons
Filed under: Midnight Previews, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Dunkirk, Girls Trip