Sony’s $110M Spider-man universe spinoff Kraven the Hunter collected $2M in previews last night while Warner Bros/New Line $30M+ anime movie Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim counted $625K.
Neither is expected to wow in their openings in a weekend that will be dominated again by Disney’s Moana 2 which is eyeing a -45% third frame ease with around $28M. Kraven the Hunter is pacing like an R-rated male action movie expected to do around $15M ala Amazon MGM Studios’ Beekeeper which did $2.4M in previews for a $16.5M opening. Lord of the Rings is looking at a mid-single digit opening. Sony and Warner Bros put these 18-34 guy demo movies in the pre-Christmas frame given each of their challenges and to benefit off the holiday multiple after Christmas, both of these movies seen as counterprogramming to upcoming family laden frame of Disney’s Mufasa and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Kraven the Hunter previews began at 2PM at 2,842 locations. Reviews at 14% Rotten are as bad as Sony’s Marvel bomb from earlier this year, Madame Web, which did 11%. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score for Kraven the Hunter is slightly higher than Madame Web, 68% to 55%.
The director of Lord of the Rings, Kenji Kamiyama, is respected in the anime space his credits including the 2017 GKIDS feature Napping Princess, the Ghost in the Shell TV series plus an episode of Disney+’s Star Wars: Visions as well as 13 episodes of Max’s Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
Among regular films in release, Universal’s Wicked continued to beat Moana 2 daily in the Monday through Thursday span, this despite the sequel beating the Broadway musical on the weekends. Wicked made $3M yesterday to Moana 2‘s $2.2M. Why is that? Essentially kids are in school during the week and that’s why Moana 2 makes a comeback on the weekends. Wicked‘s weekdays are full of adult women. I’m told once we get into the Christmas break period we’ll see Moana 2 closing the gap with Wicked on a daily basis. Wicked ends its third week with $50.8M with a total of $336.5M, while Moana 2 grossed $62.8M for a running cume of $310.8M.