“The Whale” grossed an estimated $159K on Friday from 6 locations in NY/LA, for a daily per-location average of $26,525. This result is the third best single day per-theater-average for a movie in pandemic era, behind only the opening days of “Licorice Pizza” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home”.
So, despite mixed reviews, “The Whale” is doing pretty great all things considered. People are very curious about this movie and the fact that Brendan Fraser has been everywhere this awards season has helped tremendously. We might finally have an indie movie here that could put up some decent numbers this fall awards season.
The snubbing of “The Whale” on the AFI and NBR lists wasn’t so surprising, that is if you strolled past the conspicuous marketing of the film and went straight to the review aggregators. When Darren Aronofsky’s film finally started getting more reviews this past week, the numbers were not encouraging. It’s now at 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.