Sony Pictures’ Neill Blomkamp-directed film adaptation of its PlayStation franchise “Gran Turismo” is expected to top the box-office this coming weekend – even as projections for it have lowered.
The $60 million budgeted film was originally set for a wide release on August 11th before Sony suddenly shifted to an August 25th release whilst holding plenty of ‘previews’ of the film over the past two weekends.
The idea was the word-of-mouth generated would compensate for the cast being unavailable to promote it due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Critics have been mixed, but audience polls have been raves.
Unfortunately, those previews have been a little soft, with the trades reporting that they’ve pulled in a little over $3 million. Their final number will be rolled into the film’s first Friday haul.
Doing so is expected to boost the movie’s opening weekend to an estimated $15 million up from the revised estimates of $12 million for the Friday-Sunday debut haul.
The other complication is National Cinema Day which falls on Sunday and reduces ticket prices in all formats to $4 each. How that will impact the film’s potential box-office and admissions numbers won’t be clear until Monday.
It’s expected Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Barbie” and “Blue Beetle” will fight it out for second place with $12-13 million each. The numbers come as the summer domestic box office looks set to cross $4 billion – the 13th time ever.
Source: Deadline
