Sony/Spyglass’ rom-horror Heart Eyes had a solid beat in previews Thursday with $1.1M as exhibitors and studios brace for the traditional sluggish Super Bowl weekend, which will see Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man doing a repeat of No. 1 with a hopeful $20M second frame.
Usually, the overall box office dips roughly 30% from Saturday to Sunday, but Quorum reports that Super Bowl Sunday can drop as much as 60%.
The Jordana Brewster-Olivia Holt Heart Eyes is expected to file in the high single digits this weekend.
Also opening wide is the Universal/87 North action movie Love Hurts, which wasn’t so hot in previews last night with $850K, in what will be a mid-single-digits result this weekend.
Heart Eyes and Love Hurts began previews at 2 p.m. in around 2,600 locations. Both movies have some PLF screens that hopefully will work to their advantage. In more coincidence, each title carries a production cost of $18M.
Critics did not get a kick out of Love Hurts, which stars Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan, at 23% rotten. Heart Eyes is better in its reviews at 85% fresh, and PostTrak stands at 3 stars.
Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man was the top dog Thursday night with $881K, +4% from Wednesday for a first week of $40.4M.
Heart Eyes’ previews are on par with Companion‘s $1.1M Thursday previews a week ago. Again, a fine number for previews, but where will business go? Companion had excellent critical reviews and audience exits but settled for a 3-day of $9.3M and is ending its first week with $12.4M (that’s off an under-$10M production cost). Can Heart Eyes do better? The difference between the two movies is that Companion is a genre thriller while Heart Eyes is sold as more of a slasher. What we’re witnessing already 38 days into 2025: There are a lot of horror movies on the schedule, and opening weekends are bound to get diluted. Pre-Covid, studios made it their plan to space out genre movies. No more.
Meanwhile, Love Hurts, which is targeting diverse moviegoers this weekend, didn’t post a preview number on par to Dev Patel’s gritty R-rated action movie Monkey Man from last April; that movie saw $1.4M in previews before a $10.1M opening (and ultimate $25.1M domestic final).
Here is the week’s top 5:
1. Dog Man (Uni) 3,885 theaters, Thu $881K (+4% from Wed.) Wk $40.4M/Wk 1
2. Companion (NL/WB) 3,285 theaters, Thu $530K (-24%), Wk $12.4M/Wk 1
3. One of Them Days (Sony) 2,306 theaters, Thu $406K (-10%), Wk $7.9M, Total $36.3M/Wk 3
4. Mufasa: The Lion King (Dis) 3,180 theaters, Thu $358K (+6%), Wk $7.86M, $231.2M/Wk 7
5. Flight Risk (LG) 3,161 theaters, Thu $363K (-11%), Wk $7.2M, $22.5M/Wk 2