The early box office numbers are coming in, and while Street Fighter is on track for a number one finish, I wouldn’t call it a TKO. While it’s coming in slightly higher than I predicted earlier this week, the projected $31 million finish (via Deadline) is fairly mediocre, as it’s coming in well under the $38.5 million Mortal Kombat 2 opened with this summer. In the end, though, it will be the international box office that decides whether or not the movie becomes profitable enough to score a sequel. It earned a B-minus CinemaScore rating, which is pretty mediocre. Still, it’s better than last weekend’s Other Mommy, which got a D+ and is on track for a huge 73% second-weekend drop with a $7.4 million finish.
The big surprise is Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, which is on track for a $12–14 million opening. That’s impressive for a documentary that’s only playing on 800 screens. It will end the weekend with the second-biggest documentary opening of all time, behind Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which opened with over $23 million in 2004. Of course, that doesn’t include music concert docs, with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tourclocking $93.2 million three years ago.
Sadly, 20th Century Studios’ Whalefall is having an abysmal start, with only a $7 million opening at best, narrowly beating Focus Features’ Sense and Sensibility redux, which is looking at $6 million. Disney’s had a hard time opening non-franchise live-action films as of late, with their previous film, Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, also a disaster. Perhaps the idea of watching Austin Abrams trying to survive inside a whale’s stomach was a little too difficult for audiences to swallow (pun intended).
What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the talkbacks.
