Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World will reign supreme in its second weekend with roughly a $30M+ take as it holds on to Imax and premium screens, but watch out for Neon‘s second Oz Perkins movie The Monkey.
Currently, the pic based on the Stephen King tome and starring Theo James and Tatiana Maslany looks to do around $17M, give-or-take, at 3,200 theaters, but don’t underestimate this little beast from Atomic Monster, which now is partnered with Blumhouse.
The pic’s trailer blew up with 109M views, as Deadline first told you, an anomaly for an indie horror movie. Plus, Neon has been cleverly stunting this movie with a funeral session church premiere, Hollywood Cemetery fan screenings and 8-foot tall monkey statues in multiplex lobbies — which take six people to assemble — all leading into Fandango declaring the title the best horror ticket pre-seller year-to-date. And there’s been a lot in less than two months, but the title ahead of Heart Eyes, Wolf Man, Companion and Presence. Underscoring Neon’s commitment to the $10M movie: It acquired the pic at Cannes last year, well ahead of its July $129.6M global/$74.3M domestic success with the filmmaker’s Longlegs. Neon took U.S. rights on The Monkey in the high single digits. Get excited: There’s another Perkins pic this year from Neon, with his Keeper hitting theaters October 3.
The blurb for The Monkey: When twin brothers Bill and Hal find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts. The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
Previews start Thursday at 7 p.m. Thursday, and that number also will include some advance fan screenings. The target audiences are 17- to 34-year-olds and Latino and Black moviegoers. The Monkey is the third horror movie of the year to score solid reviews, after Companion and Heart Eyes, at 84% fresh.
The Monkey producer James Wan is an architect of several horror franchises centered on toys, cursed objects and supernatural artifacts. he has a knack for taking inanimate objects and imbuing them with deep, unsettling lore, making them iconic horror symbols, read: Annabelle, Dead Silence and M3GAN.
Marvel
Captain America: Brave New World scored $100M 4-day opening off a B- Cinemascore, which is remarkable given that previous MCU titles such as Eternals and The Marvels lost their capes at the box office with B Cinemascores. The hope is for a hold that’s better than Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s -70% in the weekend following its 4-day Presidents Day 2023 launch. Among MCU titles (not Sony/Marvel), The Marvels owns the worst second-weekend drop at -78%. Brave New World grossed an estimated $6.3M Tuesday taking its five-day total to $106.3M, which is only $21.1M behind Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s running cume at the same point in time.
Lionsgate has a Kingdom Story movie in The Unbreakable Boy booked at 1,700 theaters, which will land in the single-digit millions. The pic is directed by Jon Gunn, based on the book by Scott LeRette with Susy Flory. When his parents, Scott (Zachary Levi) and Teresa (Meghann Fahy), learn that Austin is both autistic and has brittle bone disease, they initially worry for their son’s future. But with Scott’s growing faith and Austin’s incredible spirit, they become “unbreakable.” Previews start at 4 p.m. Thursday.
The domestic box office is in a healthy place at $895.8M, per Comscore, pacing 20% ahead of last year’s Jan. 1-Feb. 17 period.