Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day will reign supreme not only this weekend in its second frame but for the entire month of August. Nonetheless, studios and indie distributors are hoping for a tide that lifts all boats in summer’s finale beginning this weekend with Universal’s romantic comedy One Night Only from Anyone But You director Will Gluck, which did $1.35 million in combined Thursday night and Monday secret screening previews.
That’s exactly what Anyone But You did in its Thursday night previews in its pre-Christmas weekend, leading to a $6M start and immense 14.7x multiple over the 2023 year-end holiday. The hope here is that One Night Only, which stars Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, is a first choice for women over/under 25, will exceed $10M.
The sole Thursday preview take for One Night Only was $750,000. Its Rotten Tomatoes film review score is low at 47%, under Anyone But You‘s 53%, but the movie isn’t for critics. The rom-com two centers on two New Yorkers who search for love on the one night of the year when premarital sex is legal. The pic is booked at 3,012 theaters Friday.
As we already told you, Spider-Man: Brand New Day was the fastest movie to cross a half-billion dollars domestically in seven days, beating Avengers: Endgame‘s pace to that benchmark which was eight days. The updated Thursday number for the Tom Holland and Zendaya pic is $29M, putting its running stateside cume at $510.8M. Even at a 60% ease in weekend 2, which is the general hold for these solid superhero movies, Brand New Day would land at $144M, which would make it the third best sophomore frame ever behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($149.2M) and Avengers: Endgame ($147.3M).
Also opening this weekend is Searchlight’s Super Troopers 3 at 2,760 theaters with an expected single-digit-millions opening. The distrib isn’t reporting previews, but sources tell us it’s around $350K. The last one, Super Troopers 2, was released in 2018 on April 20, a big day for pot smokers, and before the Disney-Fox merger was completed. It was a big surprise, posting $1.35M in previews and an outsized $15.1M opening for the crowd-co-funded $13.5M sequel. Searchlight gave the threequel a big push at Comic-Con two weekends ago with a world premiere and a beer pong games pub. Critics don’t think it is funny at 32%.
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Horror Section has Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man at 1,671 theaters, with an eye at low single digits. No previews were reported. Blurb for pic: An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results. Critics are ice cold at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.