‘The Woman King’ Tops With Strong $7 Million Friday

In what could mark an end to a distributor-caused theatrical slump, Sony and Entertainment One’s The Woman King topped the box office on Friday with a decent $6.85 million opening day. That includes $1.7 million via Thursday previews and seems to set the stage for an $18 million debut. Yes, that’s big enough to prevent me from yelling at you on Sunday and Monday for not showing up for what you claim you want to see. It’s also on par with the $17 million launch of Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing in July. That Daisy Edgar Jones-starring melodrama was the first big movie for/from/about women since The Lost City and Everything, Everywhere All at Once in late March. Now the Viola Davis/Lashana Lynch/John Boyega action drama is the first such film since July. Hmm…

The Woman King features Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu and John Boyega in a (somewhat true) story of the Agojie, an all-female guard protecting the king and otherwise defending the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. The film has earned mostly positive reviews, with a current 94% fresh and 7.7/10 grade on Rotten Tomatoes. It has also earned an A+ from Cinemascore, meaning you can ignore the Twitter-only #boycottTheWomanKing ‘controversy’ over the film’s historical accuracy since (fun fact) much of the ‘problematic’ material is a big part of the film’s moral conflicts. Once again, this nonsense is no more genuine or indicative of general audience sentiment than sexism/racism-motivated ‘controversies’ over The Hunger Games, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Wonder Woman, Harriet, Captain Marvel, The Rings of Power or The Little Mermaid.

The Gina Prince-Bythewood-directed picture, penned by Dana Stevens from a story by Stevens and Maria Bello, premiered at last week’s Toronto Film Festival to solid notices and under-the-radar Oscar buzz. It may not be explicitly positioned as an Oscar flick (it’s a commercially-inclined action movie first), but a strong opening could put it in the game. The hope is that the $50 million film legs out like Crawdads to an over/under $85 million domestic total, with at least some help overseas to make up the rate-of-return difference. Still, this is precisely the kind of non-franchise, star-driven ‘movie-movie’ that Sony now has the freedom/cushion to make thanks to the lucrative pay tv first window deal they signed with NetflixNFLX
last year. And with Crawdads, Bullet Train and Woman King, they seem to be on a relative roll.

The Woman King will fend off competition from Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling next weekend. After which, both ‘not a white guy’ flicks will have the field to themselves, especially outside of horror movies like Halloween Ends (and the rerelease of Avatar), until Black Adam and Tickets to Paradise on October 21. I can only hope that the audiences correctly clamoring for more non-franchise, inclusive, star-driven, adult-skewing theatrical fare will show up over the next month. The extent to which they have not over the last 15 years, at least going back to Drew Barrymore’s terrific Whip It 13 years ago (see also: A Wrinkle in Time, Widows, Overlord, The Spy Who Dumped Me… all just in 2018), has slowly become my villain origin story.

A24 opened Ti West’s Pearl yesterday. The low-budget ‘secret’ prequel to X opened with $1.317 million on Friday, which seems to set the stage for a $3.5 million opening weekend. That’s on par with the $4.275 million debut for X this past March, which tracks as it’s a sequel and plenty of moviegoers might have decided one horror romp with Mia Goth’s murderous protagonist was enough. The well-reviewed and well-received (a B- from Cinemascore, which may be a record for an A24 horror movie) prequel was shot right after X amid the Covid pandemic, so A24 got two (make that three with MaXXXine on the way) for the metaphorical price of one. My wife wants to see this one, so I’ll catch it later this weekend or early next week when she can tag along.

Searchlight Pictures opened See How They Run to expectedly small-scale results. The charming but slight 1950’s whodunnit, with a backstage murder taking place amid the cast and crew of an Agatha Christie adaptation, stars Sam Rockwell and a delightfully against-type Saoirse Ronan as the gumshoes and the likes of Adrian Brody, Ruth Wilson and David Oyelowo as the potential victims and suspects. With a low profile and little buzz, the twisty little flick earned $1.086 million yesterday for a likely $2.92 million opening weekend. Alas. Meanwhile, Brett Morgen’s buzzy David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream opened in 170 theaters, many of them IMAX or PLF, for a halfway decent per-theater average. The NEON release earned $580,000 on Friday for a likely $1.12 million weekend gross and $6,588 per-theater average. I’ll catch it in IMAX when time allows next week.

Kevin Smith’s Clerks III opened in nightly Fathom Event-sponsored theatrical showings this week. The decently reviewed (66% fresh and 6.2/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) threequel earned around $180,00 on Friday for a likely $450,000 opening weekend and lousy $563 per-theater average. However, the film will have made $1.994 million since Tuesday. Thandiwe Newton’s God’s Country opened with $96,000 on Friday for a likely $262,000 opening weekend in 785 theaters. IFC put this allegedly quite good rural thriller into a semi-wide release as frankly a glorified mitzvah. Likewise, ParamountPARA
opened Jon Hamm’s Confess, Fletch into 516 theaters for a likely $479,000 opening weekend along with a concurrent EST/PVOD release. While well-reviewed, it’s astonishing that a new Fletch movie, which we’ve all read as ‘about to happen’ for 25 years, has now been released almost under cover of darkness.