Here’s Empire City Box Office sounding the alarm on weak pre-sales for Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man.” They’re hinting at a $17–18M opening for the film — not good. The budget is reported to be $110M. It’s possible that strong reviews might bump those numbers up a bit. Reviews are embargoed until tomorrow at 10 PM PT / 1 AM ET.
Why the low numbers? The marketing has been off — I’m not sure exactly how. It also doesn’t help that it’s rated R (a good thing in my books, but bad for mass audience receipts). Regardless, it’s come to the point where “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” is projected to handily beat “The Running Man” this weekend with a $25M+ opening.
I am truly hoping Wright delivers the goods with “The Running Man,” which comes at probably the most important moment in his career. Wright is coming off his biggest failure, “Last Night in Soho,” which wasn’t necessarily a bad movie (great first half, tepid second), but it did garner the most divisive reviews of his career and only earned $23M worldwide against a $43M budget.
“The Running Man” is the big test — a make-or-break moment that will truly reveal if Wright has the goods to lure a wide enough audience to watch a high-budget movies. Those early numbers aren’t looking good, but we’re still five days away from release, and things can change at the flick of a switch, especially if reviews turn out to he glowing.
