Box office preview: Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ takes on 2nd weekend of Taylor Swift

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese returns to theaters just in time to take on Taylor Swift in the second weekend of her record-setting “The Eras Tour” concert movie. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is Scorsese’s first movie since “The Irishman” in 2019, which ultimately ended up on Netflix. Adapted from David Grann‘s 2017 true-crime novel, it’s about a group of unscrupulous white men in the 1920s trying to rob the Osage Nation of Oklahoma out of their oil money.

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“Killers” reunites Scorsese with two of the actors with whom he’s collaborated the most, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, though this is only the second time they star in one of his movies together. (They previously appeared together 30 years ago in “This Boy’s Life,” when DiCaprio was just 18.)

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De Niro’s relationship with Scorsese goes back 50 years to “Mean Streets,” but one of their biggest hits was 1991’s “Cape Fear,” which grossed $182 million worldwide. DiCaprio has had much better success with Scorsese since they first began making movies together with 2002’s “Gangs of New York.” Their biggest hit was 2015’s “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which grossed $389.8 million worldwide, which following “Shutter Island” in 2010 ($299 million globally) and the Best Picture-winning “The Departed” in 2006 ($289 million worldwide). “Shutter Island” had their biggest domestic opening with $41 million, and Leo has regularly had movies opening in that range before and since. When you add in De Niro, it creates a twosome that could appeal to both Scorsese’s older and younger fans.

That’s not to take away from Lily Gladstone, who plays Mollie Burkhart, the Osage woman that DiCaprio’s Ernest marries in hopes of inheriting her family’s money. Gladstone has been a breakthrough star in the indie world from movies like Kelly Reichart‘s “Certain Women” and “First Cow,” but “Killers” is going to raise awareness of her to a new level. There’s even chatter of Gladstone possibly becoming the first Native-American actor to receive a Lead Actress Oscar nomination. (She’s currently in second place to win by Gold Derby experts.)

Apple has done wisely by teaming up with Paramount to distribute “Killers of the Flower Moon,” as that studio also released “Shutter Island,” and it will be interesting to see if “Killers” does better in certain regions than others. Either way, you can guarantee a good number of men over 30 to be on board for whatever Scorsese delivers with women being drawn to Leo, so “Killers” should do fine with upwards of $25 million and possibly closer to $30 million.

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There are a few other releases this weekend with the closest thing to counter-programming being the R-rated comedy-musical “Dicks: The Musical,” directed by Larry Charles (“Borat,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), which will expand into roughly 350 theaters on Friday. Last weekend, the movie added nearly doubled its theaters up to 15 but dropped 53%, which is not a good sign further expansion is necessary, and it might have trouble even getting into the top 10.

Blue Fox is releasing an animated version of Oscar Wilde‘s short story “The Canterville Ghost,” featuring the voices of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Toby Jones, and Imelda Staunton, fairly wide this weekend, but it’s hard to imagine this will do better than “The Inventor” from a few weeks back, which tapped out with $306k. 

Opening in a couple theaters in New York and L.A. is Iranian-American filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz‘s Sundance Audience Award-winning “The Persian Version,” a dramedy following a feisty young queer filmmaker named Leila (Layla Mohammadi) whose mother (Niousha Noor) has been hiding a family secret for decades.

Also, Netflix will be releasing Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin‘s “NYAD” about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, as played by Annette Bening, into select theaters on Friday ahead of its Netflix streaming debut in November. Jodie Foster plays her best friend Bonnie who is along to help Diana accomplish her goal to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Check back on Sunday to see how the movies above fared.

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