Channing Tatum is set to dance off with the RMS Titanic at the pre-Valentine’s Day U.S. box-office this weekend and right now it’s not clear which film is going to sink to the bottom.
“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” is tracking to bring in $8-10 million from 1,500 North American theaters in its opening weekend. That’s going up against Paramount’s 25th anniversary re-release of “Titanic” which is charting above expectations and hopes to add $10 million over the weekend.
That’s not the only battle either as “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “80 for Brady” and “Knock at the Cabin” are all competing for the third through fifth slots with around $7-8 million each being targeted. As the Super Bowl takes place on Sunday impacting numbers, we won’t know the final result until Monday morning.
‘Mike’ is the sole newcomer this week and faces an interesting dilemma. Reviews for the film are mixed at best with a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, below the 78% of the original and 65% of the sequel.
It is also, by far, the most expensive of the three films with a $40 million budget (the first cost $7 million, the second $14 million). At the same time its opening will come in considerably less than the $39 million and slightly less than $12.8 million weekend debuts of the first two films.
Warner Bros. has also reportedly been shielding pre-release tracking estimates on the research platform Rentrak, a decision that has reportedly ruffled some feathers among the studio’s rivals. Warners did a similar approach ahead of Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet”.
Source: Variety
