Paramount’s $110M redo of the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man, this time starring Glen Powell, is targeting a No. 1 win at the box office this weekend, with around $20M. But it’s facing the heat carried by the second weekend of 20th Century Studios’ Predator: Badlands, which looks to settle at around $16M, -60%.
What could keep Predator: Badlands in a better-than-expected B.O. range is that it carries the best CinemaScore ever for the franchise (A-), as well as a high PostTrak definite recommend of 78%. Also, working to Badlands’ advantage is its PG-13 rating to Running Man‘s R rating. Badlands cleared $5.7M on Veterans Day Tuesday for a running five-day total of $49.2M.
Both are heavily male-skewing movies, though Badlands’ second-best demo last weekend was women over 25 at 22%. Of Running Man‘s 3,400 locations, 1,000 are premium large-format screens. Previews start at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The Running Man, directed by Baby Driver‘s Edgar Wright and co-financed by Domain, is based on the 1982 novel by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It follows Ben Richards (Powell), a working-class dad who is running a murderous race set in a near-dystopian future. The goal? To win $1 billion to save his sick daughter. Over 30 days, contestants are hunted by assassins and must survive. Nobody has won the game before.
‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’
Lionsgate
Looking to be a date night movie, as well as a destination for families, is Lionsgate’s $90M+ threequel, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t about magicians who reteam for a diamond heist as they target dangerous criminals. The range is wild for Now You See Me 3, between high teens and low $20Ms, but tracking isn’t betting on a No. 1 win. Presales between Running Man and Now You See Me 3 are quite close. The second Now You See Me movie was in 2016, which had an opening of $22.3M for final domestic of $65M for a global take of $334.8M. While Lionsgate sells foreign, that’s where this franchise has rallied. But note, $97M of the last film’s global haul was made in China. Given how Hollywood movies largely have been soft in the Middle Kingdom post-pandemic, don’t expect this threequel to fare as well. Previews start at 2 p.m. Thursday.
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Tatiana Maslany in ‘Keeper‘
Neon
Neon’s third Oz Perkins genre title, Keeper, is the third wide entry at 1,950 theaters with an eye at low single digits. Billed as a throwback to 1970s horror films like Rosemary’s Baby, Keeper follows a couple during a romantic anniversary trip to a secluded cabin that turns sinister when a dark presence reveals itself. They’re forced to confront the property’s haunted past. Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland star. While Perkins’ previous two movies, Longlegs (Neon’s record opener at $22.4M) and The Monkey ($14M), opened higher, the P&A spend here is less than $10M, well under Longlegs’. That’s in accordance with the production cost of the movie, which was $6M, we hear, as well as its $4M global pickup price tag by Neon. First choice is best with women under 25 on tracking.