‘The Lost City’ Nabs Solid $3.25 Million In Previews

The Lost City, starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe, began its box office adventure last night with a decent $2.5 million in preview grosses. That does not include the $750,000 earned from the Fandango sneak preview on Saturday, the Tuesday “Girl’s Night Out” preview and the Wednesday “Date Night” sneaks. All told, with the understanding that most of the folks who showed up before Thursday would have shown up on Thursday if that was the first available opportunity, The Lost City has earned $3.25 million heading into the weekend. Running the math, we’re looking at a $25-$35 million opening weekend, with optimism arguing closer to the latter figure.

Sandra Bullock’s Ocean’s 8 began with $4 million in Thursday previews in June of 2018 on its way to a $40 million Fri-Sun launch. A straight 10% Thursday-to-weekend gross would give the original, star-driven, adult-skewing rom-com adventure a terrific $32.5 million domestic debut. If that seems overly optimistic, even just using the straight-up Thursday gross as your 10% marker would still give the film a perfectly solid $25 million launch. Hustlers began with $2.5 million in September 2019 and ended with a $33 million domestic debut. Of note, the all-in $3.25 million figure is about on par with the Thursday previews for Uncharted ($3.7 million) and Scream ($3.5 million).

The hope is that the well-reviewed (76% fresh and 6.4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) and likely-to-be-well-received (it’s a crowdpleaser in the purest sense) star vehicle will show that there’s still some theatrical commercial potential for the old-school “just a movie.” The star vehicle, with a few exceptions here and there, has struggled since early 2016 as the “go to the movies just to see a movie” crowd has shifted its casual entertainment consumption to at-home streaming and VOD. Bullock was (and hopefully is) one of our biggest butts-in-seats stars and Tatum shines brightest when he’s a lover instead of a fighter. In a sane world, this would be an easy hit.

Of note, Paramount has been on a mini-roll of late, pulling good-to-great business for Scream ($81 million from a $33 million Fri-Mon debut) and Jackass Forever ($64 million/$22 million). If The Lost City, the kind of star-driven high-concept flick (it’s about a romance novelist kidnapped by a tycoon and the cover model who chases after her) that used to be Hollywood’s bread and butter, can open accordingly, it’ll be followed by the at least somewhat anticipated (possibly highly anticipated) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in two weeks. If they go four for four, I’ll start being optimistic about Top Gun: Maverick this Memorial Day. They should still play nice with Tom Cruise over Mission: Impossible 7’s theatrical window, but I digress.