UPDATE: Pixar’s “Hoppers” absolutely crushed it this weekend, especially on Saturday, which saw a 90% spike compared to Friday sales. The film is going to have a $46 million weekend, $88 million worldwide, marking the best start for a Pixar original since 2017’s “Coco.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride” is expected to lose Warner Bros. a significant amount of money. A $7 million weekend is projected for “The Bride”, with $13 million globally, against a budget of $90+ million—although Puck’s Matt Belloni claims it exceeded $100 million. Regardless, the outlook is not good; the film itself is such an over-the-top mess that, at best, it might eventually achieve cult classic status.
EARLIER: The box office numbers for Thursday preview screenings are slowly trickling in, and a few interesting narratives are starting to take shape.
It looks like it’ll be a two-way race for #1, as “Hoppers,” not counting the $1M it made in Saturday early shows, earned around $2.2M on Thursday. It is quite possible that Pixar’s latest will have an opening weekend in the $35M range.
This would be enough to make “Hoppers” earn the highest-grossing opening for a Pixar original since 2017’s “Coco,” which had a $50M three-day weekend almost nine years ago. Pixar originals have struggled post-Covid, with “Elio” ($20M) and “Elemental” ($29M) having soft openings.
Actually, maybe it won’t even be a two-way race for the top spot, as “Scream 7” might actually have a 60% drop in its second frame. The horror sequel opened last week with $60M, and based on yesterday’s $2.5M intake, we might be looking at a sub-$30M second weekend.
Now, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride.” Not looking good for this $90–100M-costing horror-action-arthouse genre mashup.
“The Bride,” which had been projected for a $17M opening before those mixed reviews dropped on Wednesday, had an underwhelming $1M in previews on Thursday — it’s currently looking at $9M for the weekend, which is almost half of what was originally expected.
This is the kind of movie that needed good reviews, but a 56 on Metacritic and at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes just isn’t good enough. In fact, these scores are way too kind — “The Bride” is not good. I’m very curious what the audience scores will be.
It gives me no pleasure to report that this is one of the worst films of Schrader’s career. Wooden acting, Jack Huston and Sofia Boutella are badly miscast, the script is dull, the photography is flat; nothing works.