How Sony Notched A No. 1 $19M+ Weekend Win With ‘The Woman King’ – Monday Box Office Update
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Monday PM: TriStar’s The Woman King stayed on track with its Sunday AM estimate, coming in at $19.05M.
It’s another great example of how Sony continues to win over adult audiences with non-tentpole fare. Pre-pandemic, TriStar had Little Women in December 2019 which posted a 3-day of $16.7M and legged out to $108.1M, and the Sony label had a summer sleeper in Where the Crawdads Sing which debuted to $17.2M and is still going, now at $88.9M domestic, $127M WW.
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Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, Tom Rothman, sent out the following celebratory email to staff about Woman King‘s triumph:
Dear Colleagues,
As The New York Times said in reference to The Woman King’s success this weekend, “it doesn’t have to be all sequels and superheroes!” Indeed! Tony and I have expressed congratulations and great appreciation to our immensely talented filmmakers Gina, Viola, Cathy, and their impressive teams of brilliant, diverse above and below-the-line talent. We’d like to add such thanks to eOne, TSG, everyone at Sony involved in the making and marketing of this groundbreaking film, and for all those – inside and out of the company – who shared in our belief.
With a rare A+ cinema score, outstanding reviews, and an excellent start at the North American box office, we’re well on our way. It’s very gratifying to see our continued faith in creating stories for a wide range of theatrical audiences pay off.
I’m sure you all share my deep sense of pride that such a historic film bears the Sony logo. Well done all!
Excelsior,
Tom
Sony
How did Sony notch this win? As we told you, there was the trailer which dropped over the summer (first shown at CinemaCon), and the quick week of heat coming out of The Woman King‘s TIFF premiere. That’s where the pic hooked initially 100% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and raised its opening projections from $13-$16M to what we have now.
The studio also kicked off the pic’s campaign by collaborating with various leading Black film festivals to bring early awareness to the film. The festivals included American Black Film Festival (ABFF) in Miami, FL, Micheaux Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA and the Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival in Martha’s Vineyard, MA where the pic’s star and producer Viola Davis participated in a clips and conversation.
TriStar also hosted #IAMWOMANKING screenings in major markets including Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York. Key influencers and press were invited to this multimarket screening event. There was also a screening program with HBCU students/alumni as well as Divine Nine Fraternal Organizations that included six markets: Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Charlotte, Chicago and Los Angeles. Additionally, Sony worked with the national Organization Delta sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. on a nationwide buyout program and partnered with digital platform, Watch The Yard to promote the Gina Prince-Bythewood directed title.
In promoting the movie, the studio created a custom spot featuring Jennifer King highlighting her unique position as a full-time NFL coach, “Woman King of pro football, Coach Jennifer King.”
Sony also teamed with Viacom (BET & VH-1) and network talent Eva Marcille, Mignon Von, Rasheed Frost, & Sierra Gates to create custom vignettes celebrating the film.
Ad spots for The Woman King dominated live sports across TV and digital during NFL games, UFC PPV Sponsorship, US Open matches, WNBA Playoffs and Finals, College Football, HBCU Football, and WWE.
A long run is expected for Woman King, at least a 3x multiple to $60M according to box office analysts.
Among final figures, 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Barbarian came in at $6.5M, -38% for a $21.1M domestic ten-day take. A24’s debut of Pearl beat Searchlight’s See How They Run‘s by a hair, $3.1M to $3M.
Sunday AM Writethru after Saturday AM update: TriStar/eOne’s The Woman King is coming in higher than expected, with a $19M opening boosted by lively word of mouth off an A+ CinemaScore and a massive 95% positive on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak. Friday, including $1.7M previews, came in at $6.8M while Saturday pulled in $7.15M.
A+ CinemaScores are hard to come by, and The Woman King is right up there with previous awards contenders like Harriet and Hidden Figures.
Sony
Comping this Black female epic to other Hollywood titles was a challenge, but that’s also what made the project extremely appealing; the fact that there’s been nothing else like it, as TriStar Boss Nicole Brown said at TIFF last weekend. Some guessed that Harriet ($11.6M) and Viola Davis’ Widows ($12.8M) were the right comparisons, but even going back to Thursday previews, Woman King has already bested those numbers. No theatrical window has been indicated yet for the Gina Prince-Bythewood directed movie, which indicates Sony’s commitment for the long haul theatrically for this movie during awards season.
Should this Viola Davis-produced and starring vehicle go higher, that will hinge on business this afternoon when Sony is expecting the churchgoing demo to head to cinemas. The studio is estimating Sunday at $5M.
Credit is due here to Sony marketing for getting this movie to as close to a $20M start as possible. While they dropped the first trailer to The Woman King for exhibition at CinemaCon back in April, with that trailer being made to the public in July, the Davis feature loaded up all its fuel in the last week in its premiere at TIFF where the Oscar-winning actress delivered an impassioned speech and the crowd in Roy Thomson Hall went wild.
The social media universe for Woman King stands at 123.8M (“strong for the genre” says RelishMix) with 35.1M views off six YouTube videos that have “an exceptional viral repost rate of 37:1” reports the analytics corp. Beyoncé re-recorded or re-mixed her song “The Power” for the soundtrack “which is unifying the message of the film and also playing in the trailer. Viola Davis fans are well aware of the film and word-of-mouth will impact the turnout on opening weekend as the film is well connected,” said RelishMix in its pre-weekend report.
As expected, women are the majority at Woman King at 60%, with 58% over 35 and 39% over 45, another promising sign for an older demographic that was reluctant to head out during the height of the pandemic. Black moviegoers turned out at 59%, with Caucasians at 19%, Latino and Hispanic at 12%, and Asian/other at 10%. The Woman King saw its best business in the East and South, where seven of the top ten runs came from. LA’s AMC Burbank and the Grove also ranked in the top ten, along with the Country Club in Chicago. PLF screens and Imax auditoriums are repping 34% of Woman King‘s weekend ticket sales at this point in time. Imax Woman King prints at 235 grossed $950K for the weekend. Best markets were NYC, Atlanta, DC, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Philly, Miami, Baltimore, Orlando, Detroit, and Tampa.
Below is Deadline’s interview out of TIFF with The Woman King:
20th Century Studios/Disney’s Barbarian is holding up pretty spectacularly for a horror movie at -40% (they’re typically down -65% in weekend 2) with an estimated $6.3M. Disney always had a feeling the pic would thrive off of hot buzz; that’s why they went theatrical with it. Curious to see how far this might be able to go in the long run. Pic’s second weekend will bring its ten-day running total to $20.9M.
A24
A24’s horror movie Pearl, which got an extra boost with a run at TIFF last weekend after its world premiere at Venice, is expected to come in slightly lower than the $4M debut of its predecessor, X, with a $3.124M start in third place. The R-rated Ti West-directed movie skewed 53% guys, with 79% between 18-34. Grades were meh, though on par for a horror movie, at B- CinemaScore and 75% positive, 54% recommend from PostTrak. The coasts and Southwest were potent here, with nine of the top ten runs. Alamo counted four of the top ten. Demos were 51% Caucasian, 25% Latino and Hispanic, 11% Black, and 13% Asian/other.
Below our interview with Pearl out of TIFF:
Searchlight
Searchlight’s wide release of comedy caper See How They Run, directed by Tom George and starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, didn’t have the best reviews at 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. While Searchlight had a lot at the festivals, i.e. The Menu and Chevalier at TIFF and The Banshees of Inisherin and Empire of Light at TIFF and Venice, this title wasn’t in the mix, and I hear it was just merely a pithy title, not really one with any awards patina.
Still, applause is needed for this movie going theatrical vs. Hulu, as Disney has confined Searchlight to a set amount of big screen releases annually. As we’ve been preaching throughout this part of the pandemic, anything is better with a window, even for an OTT service, and See How They Run is at 45 days. Unless Pearl has a strong Sunday, See How They Run will settle for fourth at $3.1M at 2,404, the pic falling in the range of Searchlight’s projections. Honestly, it feels like See How They Run is more like the type of Sunday film to overindex vs. a horror film which is frontloaded on Friday and Saturday nights. The caper played best on the coasts and Midwest, but results were OK: Only a third of the pic’s runs were over $500 on Friday while Saturday put over a third of the pic’s runs over $1K+ for the two days. Friday’s $1.08M includes $200K Thursday previews. Strong results at AMC Lincoln Square, Century City, Grove, Burbank and in hipster markets like Brooklyn and Austin; even Utah where PG-13 titles fare quite well.
Neon/UPCG
However, if there’s life in the arthouse sector, it’s coming from NEON’s Brett Morgen-directed David Bowie doc Moonage Daydream, which is chalking up an awesome $7,2K per theater at 170 locations for what looks to be a $1.22M opening in No. 10. That’s easily the best opening for a music documentary post pandemic, and the best start for a docu post pandemic on less than 200 screens, second only to Focus Features’ Roadrunner which was booked at 900+ sites and debuted to $1.988M. In the last 52 weeks, the only pic to go out on less than 200 screens and surpass $1.2M was Searchlight’s French Dispatch. A lot of that business had to do with the documentary being booked in Imax. Also, Morgen did Q&As to sold out shows at the TCL Chinese Theatre in LA. Bravo. The movie in 77 markets is putting up excellent ticket sales in NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, and Toronto. The pic premiered in the Midnight section at Cannes back in May and was the centerpiece of NEON’s CinemaCon session. Moonage Daydream expands to 600 theaters next weekend.
Another film capturing a bulk of screens during this dry period at theaters is UP2U Films’ faith-based drama Running the Bases, from directors Marty Roberts and Jimmy Womble. Logline: When a small-town baseball coach gets the offer of a lifetime from a larger 6A High School, he uproots his family and leaves the only home he’s ever known, but soon faces opposition to his coaching methods from the school superintendent.
Friday was $195K in a 3-day that looks like $545,5K. Audience scores at 86% positive on PostTrak, and 76% were brighter than the bucks being made. Female faith-based crowd here at 51%, 79% over 35, 58% over 45, and 40% over 55. Diversity demos were 86% Caucasian, 11% Latino and Hispanic and 3% Black. Midwest and South saw the most activity.
Paramount has the Miramax Jon Hamm title Confess, Fletch, which is theatrical day-and-date on PVOD. Booked at 516 locations, the pic did $96K on Friday for what is a $260K 3-day opening.
Focus Features
While the industry, especially during awards season, calls for the need for diverse films, Focus Features has the wonderful, and emotionally moving The Silent Twins, which made its premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. This Agnieszka Smoczynska-directed drama was amazing in its based-on-a-true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, who spent their childhood only communicating with each other, and yielding brilliant, creative endeavors.
However, they hit teenage-dom, open up and fall in love with the same guy, and everything goes sideways. It’s a tragic, jarring story. With $102K at 279 theaters (a $365 theater average), the movie isn’t making waves on the arthouse set when it should. It’s so early on the fall release schedule here, I don’t even know if Focus screened the movie for Academy members. The pic is truly underrated, and critics were too harsh at 60% fresh. Really, this is a movie that could have made a dent and with reviews like that, I don’t know if Focus will carry this Letitia Wright production further into awards season. I heard there would be an expansion next weekend, then heard that’s not the case. It’s very upsetting, as this is a very original movie, much like when Moonlight came on the scene, that deserves much more attention, support and push.
Here’s our interview with Silent Twins out of Cannes:
All of these wide releases spell for a weekend that’s estimated at $51M for all titles. While +16% from last weekend, it’s the fourth-worst weekend YTD. So far, there has only been 14 weekends in 2022 that have grossed over $100M. Three weekends have seen all movies grossing north of $200M+.
Next weekend will be fun as we watch how much the Harry Styles fans’ overdeliver on Olivia Wilde’s genre movie Don’t Worry Darling. The under-and-over is $20M. As we already reported, paid preview screenings in Imax were the fastest selling-to-date for the large format exhibitor.
Top 10 pics for Sept. 16-18., chart updated with Sunday numbers.
1.) The Woman King (Sony) 3,765 theaters Fri $6.8M, Sat $7.15M, Sun $5M, 3-day $19M/Wk 1
2.) Barbarian (20th/Dis) 2,340 theaters, Fri $1.96M (-48%), $2.7M, Sun $1.6M 3-day $6.3M (-40%)/Total $20.9M/Wk 2
3.) Pearl (A24) 2,935 theaters, Fri $1.3M, Sat $1M, Sun $803K, 3-day $3.124M/Wk 1
4.) See How They Run(Sea) 2,404 theaters, Fri $1.08M/Sat $1.16M, Sun $854K, 3-day $3.1M/Wk 1
5.) Bullet Train (Sony) 2,602 (-454) theaters, Fri $720K, Sat $1.1M, Sun $655K 3-day $2.5M (-24%)/, Total $96.3M/Wk 7
By hook or by crook, this Brad Pitt movie will make it to $100M.
6.) Top Gun: Maverick (Par) 2,604 (-401) theaters, Fri $630K (-25%), Sat $1M, Sun $550K 3-day $2.18M (-31%), Total $709M/Wk 17
7.) DC League of Super-Pets (WB) 2,756 (-287) theaters, Fri $440K (-11%) Sat $1.02M, Sun $715K, 3-day $2.175M (-18%)/Total $87.8M Wk 8
8.) The Invitation (Sony) 2,425 (-692) theaters, Fri $485K, Sat $775K Sun $440K 3-day $1.7M (-36%)/Total $21.4M/Wk 2
9.) Minions: Rise of Gru (Uni) 1,970 theaters (-304), Fri $260K (-21%), Sat $640K, Sun $420K, 3-day $1.32M (-24%), Total: $364.1M/Wk 12
This Illumination Entertainment sequel is still trying to catch up and become the highest grossing movie in the Minions/Despicable Me universe stateside, that title currently owned by Despicable Me 2 with $368M domestic.
10.) Moonage Daydream (NEON) 170 theaters, Fri $592K, Sat $373K, Sun $260K, PTA $7,2k/3-day $1.22M/Wk 1
Notables:
Brahmastra Part One – Shiva (Dis/Star) 810 theaters, Fri $319K (-83%), Sat $480K Sun $301K 3-day $1.1M (-76%)/Total $6.76M/Wk 2
Friday AM: The Viola Davis-produced and -starring warrior pic The Woman King is off to a solid start with $1.7M after showtimes that began at 3 p.m. Thursday at 3,271 venues. The $50M feature co-financed by TriStar and eOne is expected to make between $13M-$16M this weekend after a very warmly received premiere at TIFF last Friday, and Rotten Tomatoes critic reviews that had hovered at 100% now have now settled to a still-great 94%.
Sony was eyeing Harriet and Widows, the latter a Davis action crime movie, as comps, and already Woman King has beaten both those pics’ respective $600K Thursday previews by 183%. The Woman King expands to 3,675 theaters this weekend, and the hope is that those excellent reviews will pull in adults at a time when there’s not much on the marquee.
Toronto Review: Viola Davis In Gina Prince-Bythewood’s ‘The Woman King’
A24 also has the Ti West horror installment Pearl going wide at 2,900 theaters. The movie starring and co-written by Mia Goth is expected to open in the neighborhood of its previous chapter, X, which was $4M.
Searchlight
Searchlight is going wide on the mystery comedy See How They Run starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan in 2,404 theaters. Searchlight is expecting to $1M-$3M. It’s at 72% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Among regular ranked titles on Thursday, Disney/20th Century Studios’ horror movie The Barbarian made $773K at 2,340 theaters, -18% from Wednesday, for a week’s take of $14.6M. Zach Cregger’s acclaimed movie is expected to bring in a second weekend around $4.5M.
Fathom’s faith-based Lifemark did $361K Thursday at 1,531 for a week’s take of $3.6M.
Lionsgate’s Clerks III made $275K, +62% from Wednesday for a week’s take since Tuesday of $1.5M at 1,089 locations. The Kevin Smith-directed sequel will continue to play throughout the weekend.
Bullet Train and Top Gun: Maverick were fourth and fifth on Thursday with $267K and $274K, respectively. Now at 3,056 theaters, Bullet Train‘s domestic total through six weeks stands at $93.9M, while Maverick counts $706.8M at the end of its 16th week.
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