‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’ Tuning Up For $30M+ Global Opening – Box Office Preview
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AMC’s second concert movie theatrical release, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, is hoping to liven up what typically is a dull frame at the box office — the post-Thanksgiving/early December downer corridor — with what’s looking like a $30M global opening, maybe $40M.
The second movie ever to be distributed wide by an exhibitor arrives just as AMC’s first title, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — which was a very bright spot at the fall box office with $250M WW — winds down on screens and winds up in homes on December 13 for digital purchase.
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Sources have said for quite some time that despite the mammoth success of the Renaissance concert tour — with ticket sales close to $600M, per Live Nation back in August, making it the eighth-highest-grossing concert tour of all time and the second highest-grossing by a woman — the singer’s appeal is vastly different from Taylor Swift’s. Hence, an opening weekend stateside similar to Eras Tour (the best this fall season at $92.8M domestic) was never to be expected for Renaissance. If the new movie, which is hot with Black audiences and older women, is lucky, it will be lead the box office with a $20M domestic start, and possibly $20M abroad. We saw the disparity in the first-day presales of both concert movies: Renaissance rang up an estimated first day of $6M to Eras Tour’s $37M (that latter figure ultimately swelled to $65M).
We hear that presales for Renaissance are behind that of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story ($10.5M in 2021) and slightly ahead of that of that year’s In the Heights ($11.5M), all compared before their opening weekends. We hear that Renaissance presales at AMC and Regal theaters, which have a big footprint with Black moviegoing audiences, look very robust, while No. 3 circuit Cinemark does not.
Still, before Swift, an opening for a wide release concert movie stateside between $15M-$20M is very good. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never opened to $29.5M in 2011, while Michael Jackson’s This Is It saw $23.2M in 2009. Heck, U2’s Rattle & Hum back in their heyday of 1988 saw a first weekend of $3.8M in 1,391 theaters — low by benchmarks then and today. Sources reiterate that Swift’s Eras Tour is “a unicorn” given the fact that it was a very hot, sold-out live tour with the movie arriving in theaters at the end of its U.S. leg and before the start of its European dates.
Beyoncé will have the command of PLFs and Imax screens at the box office, though they’ll be shared with Toho International’s Godzilla Minus One. She’ll be booked in 2,539 theaters, with another 2,780 abroad in 94 territories. Renaissance stateside previews begin at 7 p.m. Thursday. The movie similar to Eras Tour will play Thursday-Sunday at movie theaters. Big markets for the pic in Weekend 1 will be Mexico, UK, South Africa, Kenya, Australia and Germany.
No Renaissance reviews on Rotten Tomatoes yet, but Deadline’s Katie Campione gave the movie a thumbs-up, saying, “The film captures all the spectacle and energy that makes Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour feel legendary.”
The all-time leading Grammy winner directed the movie which is both concert and documentary with a 2½-hour running time.
RELATED: ‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ Tops $250M At Worldwide Box Office
The biggest opening for a movie in early December belongs to the Warner Bros.’ 2003 Tom Cruise pic The Last Samurai, at $24.2M, while Disney’s third weekend of Frozen 2 in early December 2019 counts the most amount of money for a film at No. 1 with $35.1M. After Disney’s Wish posted a lackluster domestic start with $19.6M 3-day, $31.6M 5-day, don’t expect it to lead this weekend. Meanwhile, industry estimates expect the No. 1 movie over the Thanksgiving holiday, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, to ease by 55% in Weekend 3 with a gross around $13M. The Lionsgate release on Monday became the 23rd movie in 2023 to cross $100M in U.S./Canada.
Godzilla Minus One, Toho’s first U.S. theatrical release on its own, is eyeing a 3-day between high single digits to $10M+. The feature from writer-director Takashi Yamazaki, which is a Japanese reboot of the classic lizard franchise has already grossed over $19M in Japan.
Angel Studios also has the sci-fi movie The Shift opening in 2,400 locations which is expected to be in the low single digits. The pic stars Neal McDonough and Sean Astin. Here’s the logline: After meeting a mysterious stranger, a man must escape a dystopian world to return to his wife.
How low could this weekend be? All films a year ago combined to gross $52.7M, per Box Office Mojo. The first weekend of December 2019, which saw Frozen 2 leading the chart with $35.1M, clocked all titles at $90.3M, which was low by pre-Covid box office standards.
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