Weekend projections: Twisters hits blockbuster territory with $80-million opening

Resurrecting old intellectual property doesn’t always pay off for studios, as The Fall Guy showed in early May, and there’s an argument that Twisters couldn’t add much to what Twister had to say back in 1996. Audiences aren’t seeing it that way this weekend, as Twisters will pile up a shade over $80 million, according to Universal’s Sunday-morning projection. That’s up notably from our Friday-morning prediction of $66 million, and the studio’s projection of $74.6 million on Saturday.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

The steady increase in expectations for the weekend are a sign of excellent word of mouth, and the studio pointed towards a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 92%, and A- CinemaScore this morning. The audience is split down the middle, at 50% male and 50% female, but skewing slightly older than one might expect, with 78% of moviegoers 25 or older. 13 to 17 year-olds are making up just 6% of the audience, and the 18–24 segment 16%, a lower share than 35–44 year-olds, who are clocking in at 20%. The other demographic groups: 25–34, 29%; 45–54, 13%; and 55+ at 16%. 50% of the audience identifies as Causasian, 25% Hispanic, 11% Africa American, 9% Asian, and 6% Native American and other.

Our model expects Twisters to make $214 million domestically, based on its opening weekend performance, but there’s obviously a lot of uncertainty in that prediction (anything between $170 million and $410 million would be within the margin of error). So it’ll be interesting to see how the next week or two goes for the movie. It’ll have competition from Deadpool & Wolverine next weekend, but there’s room in theaters for two movies to do well, and Twisters, with its PG-13 rating, looks like the family popcorn movie of the Summer.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com