Lionsgate‘s release of Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk starring Mark Wahlberg made in $950K in previews last night. The last time Gibson directed was nine years for the 2x Oscar winning WWII movie Hacksaw Ridge also from Lionsgate. It’s not clear yet if Flight Risk will win the weekend, tracking saying $9M-$11M, but if it does, it will rep 2x this month for Lionsgate, a feat they haven’t hard since November 2023’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Flight Risk is booked at 3,100 theaters, of which 660 are Premium Large Format screens and 273 Motion seat screens (4DX, DBOX, MX4D). Reviews for Flight Risk are 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera stood at 60% with critics on RT, and that landed Lionsgate a No. 1 win with $15M.
Tracking service Quorum spots some of the gas leaking on Flight Risk: Unaided awareness has stalled at 4%, which is never a good sign in a pic’s final week, with interest slipping from 55% to 51%.
Headwinds that Flight Risk is flying into this weekend include two NFL Conference Championship games. If Flight Risk nosedives, it’s at the paws of Disney’s Mufasa which is heading into its 6th weekend with an eye at $8M-$9M.
NEON‘s drone shot ghost thriller Presence from Steven Soderbergh, which they took the world on a year ago after the pic’s Sundance premiere is eyeing a $2M-$3M opening at 1,750 theaters. It’s 89% certified fresh.
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