Warner Bros’ Leonardo DiCaprio–Paul Thomas Anderson team-up “One Battle After Another” will no doubt spur a bunch of box office-related think-pieces this weekend. The film pulled in around $3M in previews on Thursday.
That number is close to DiCaprio’s last outing, Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which grossed $2.6M in previews before landing a $23M opening weekend. Of course, ‘Killers’ faced the double handicap of a strike preventing its stars from marketing it, and not to mention it's 3.5 hour runtime.
“One Battle After Another” is projected to open in the “low $20M range,” according to Deadline, and that’s against a hefty $150M budget. Still, the film can be seen as a “win” for Warner Bros since this might very well be this year’s Oscar frontrunner.
That said, whether it breaks out or not, this weekend’s numbers will be watched closely. A win for “One Battle After Another” is a win for original, non-franchise theatrical films. Here’a hoping, led by rave reviews, the walkups are stronger on Friday.