Ti West's "Ebenezer" made $1.5M from Thursday previews. That's a decent start. This is the first big greenlight from Paramount’s new regime since last year's Skydance merger. For a while now, it's also been widely seen as Johnny Depp's comeback vehicle.
"Ebenezer" should take #1 with about $23M domestically, plus another $20M from 63 overseas markets, including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain and the U.K. where Johnny Depp’s name still carries a lot of weight.
Critics are not on board, to say the least. This $38M take on "A Christmas Carol" sits at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. But I mentioned yesterday that French audiences have been rating it highly. It has a 4 on AlloCiné, which is roughly an A/A- CinemaScore. Well, last night's PostTrak for U.S. audiences was just as good, with 4.5 stars.
If that word-of-mouth holds through the holidays, "Ebenezer" could have some real legs. It's a Christmas movie opening in mid-November, after all, and one can definitely see this still being a go-to ticket in December.
"Ebenezer" will dethrone "Godzilla Minus Zero," which is in its second weekend. Takashi Yamazaki's sequel opened to $31M last weekend. Projections have it taking second this weekend with $12M-$15M.
Meanwhile, Sony's "Ghost Soldier" is quietly doing fine. The Jim Caviezel action movie, about a former Green Beret who protects his Wyoming neighbors from a ruthless corporation threatening their rural town, opened Wednesday in 2,558 theaters. It made $2.3M on opening day, including previews, then another $800K yesterday, for a $3.1M total.
The people buying tickets love it. The “Sound of Freedom” demo is back at it with a 90% RT audience score and 4 stars on PostTrak. Critics, meanwhile, and unsurprisingly, gave it 42% on RT. You know this crowd by now. They don't read reviews, and they turn out anyway.
Then there's Amazon MGM Studios' "How to Rob a Bank." David Leitch's heist movie, starring Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz, only made $900K in previews that started yesterday at 4PM. Critics hated it, with a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. The budget was around $60M, per Variety, although Deadline, carrying some water, no doubt, says it’s actually 40M. Regardless, this one looks like a big miss for Amazon/MGM.
I mentioned that French audiences have been rating “Ebenezer” highly. It has a 4 on AlloCiné, which is roughly an A/A- CinemaScore. Well, last night's PostTrak for U.S. audiences was just as good, with 4.5 stars.