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.
Marvel's "Ghost Rider" just hired one of the best cinematographers working today. Linus Sandgren will serve as DP on Shawn Levy's MCU flick, and, most notably, the project will be shot on film.