This one must sting for 20th Century, most notably Steve Asbell, who has come to place immense faith in director Brian Duffield, signing him up for a handful of projects and even allowing him to take a crack at rewriting the next "Alien" movie.
Duffield's "Whalefall," the survival thriller about a diver swallowed by a sperm whale, is heading toward a roughly $7M-ish opening weekend, according to the most recent Saturday update.
That's well under the $13M tracking had suggested. For a film that reportedly cost around $60M to make, before marketing, that's a problem.
"Whalefall" is actually being outpaced, and could be doubled in gross by Nathan Fielder's A24 doc "You Can See Everything," which is headed toward $14M from just 855 screens. "Whalefall" is playing in 3,065 locations. A documentary playing in less than a third of the theaters is beating a studio thriller with Josh Brolin in it. Meanwhile, "Street Fighter" is taking the weekend with $31M, and its older male audience is exactly the crowd "Whalefall" needed.
The reception isn't the main issue here, but the scores hint at an unexceptional film: it sits at 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences gave it only a B CinemaScore. That's not an outright rejection, but it's not the kind of word of mouth that rescues a soft opening either.
I keep coming back to the premise. Who wants to watch a movie about a guy trapped inside a whale? Tough sell. You either buy into the absurdity or you don't, and it seems most people didn't. Duffield impressed some with "No One Will Save You," but that film went straight to Hulu, where the stakes were different. Putting $60M behind an original concept in a crowded October was always a gamble.
"Whalefall" now joins a growing list of October disappointments. Disney will likely get it onto streaming quickly, where I suspect it'll find an audience.
Duffield's "Whalefall," the survival thriller about a diver swallowed by a sperm whale, is heading toward a roughly $7M-ish opening weekend, according to the most recent Saturday update.