Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World will reign supreme in its second weekend with roughly a $30M+ take as it holds on to Imax and premium screens, but watch out for NEON‘s second Oz Perkins movie, The Monkey.
Currently, the Theo James-Tatiana Maslany based on the Stephen King tome looks to do around $17M, give-or-take at 3,200 theaters, but don’t underestimate this little beast from Atomic Monster (who is now partnered with Blumhouse).
The pic’s trailer blew up with 109M views as Deadline first told you, an anomaly for an indie horror movie, not to mention NEON has been cleverly stunting this movie with a funeral session church premiere, Hollywood Cemetary fan screenings, eight-foot tall Monkey statues in multiplex lobbies (which takes six people to assemble) all leading into Fandango declaring the title the best horror ticket pre-seller year-to-date (and there’s been a lot in less than two months) ahead of Heart Eyes, Wolf Man, Companion, and Presence. Underscoring NEON’s commitment to the $10M movie; they acquired the Perkins’ pic well ahead of their July $129.6M global/$74.3M domestic success with the filmmaker’s Longlegs at Cannes last year. NEON took U.S. rights on The Monkey in the high single digits. Get excited: there’s another Perkins pic this year from Neon with his Keeper on Oct. 3.
Theo James in ‘The Monkey’
Neon
Blurb for Monkey: When twin brothers Bill and Hal find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths start. The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
Previews start Thursday at 7PM and that number will also include some advance fan screenings. 17-34 year olds, Latino and Black moviegoers are the target audience. The Monkey is the third horror movie of the year to score solid reviews after Companion and Heart Eyes at 84% fresh.
The Monkey producer James Wan is an architect of several horror franchises centered around toys, cursed objects, and supernatural artifacts. Wan has a knack for taking inanimate objects and imbuing them with deep, unsettling lore, making them iconic horror symbols, read Annabelle, Dead Silence and M3GAN.
Marvel
Captain America: Brave New World scored $100M 4-day opening off a B- CinemaScore, which is remarkable given that previous MCU titles like Eternals and The Marvels lost their capes at the box office with B Cinemascores. The hope is for a hold that’s better than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s -70% in the weekend following its 4-day Presidents Day 2023 launch. Among MCU titles (not Sony/Marvel), The Marvels owns the worst second weekend drop at -78%. Brave New World grossed an estimated $6.3M Tuesday taking its five-day total to $106.3M, which is only $21.1M behind Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s running cume at the same point in time.
Lionsgate has a Kingdom Story movie in The Unbreakable Boy booked at 1,700 theaters which will land in the single digits. Pic is directed by Jon Gunn, based on the book by Scott LeRette with Susy Flory. When his parents, Scott (Zachary Levi) and Teresa (Meghann Fahy), learn that Austin is both autistic and has brittle bone disease, they initially worry for their son’s future. But with Scott’s growing faith and Austin’s incredible spirit, they become “unbreakable” Previews start at 4PM Thursday.
The domestic box office is in a healthy place per Comscore at $895.8M, pacing 20% ahead of last year’s Jan. 1-Feb. 17 period.