‘Death On The Nile’, ‘Marry Me’, ‘Blacklight’ & The Urgency For Adults At The Weekend Box Office – Preview

Broadway continued its 2022 rebound last week, with 92% of available seats filled and box office receipts climbing 5% over the previous week to $23,004,259.

Naman Ramachandran Sony release “Uncharted” continued its reign atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the third weekend in a row collecting £3.08 million ($4.1 million), according to numbers released by Comscore.

“Uncharted” has continued to perform well at the box office with a second weekend total of $23.2 million. That result is a drop of just 46% from the film’s $44 million 3-day opening last weekend, giving “Uncharted” a 10-day domestic box office total of $83.3 million.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterIt’s (still) good to be Tom Holland.The 25-year-old actor has been all-but-singlehandedly propelling ticket sales at North American movie theaters, leading two films in the top three spots on domestic box office charts. Over the weekend, his action-adventure “Uncharted” repeated No.

That result is a drop of just 46% from the film’s $44 million 3-day opening last weekend, giving “Uncharted” a 10-day domestic box office total of $83.3 million. While it is expected to see its numbers significantly drop once “The Batman” is released, “Uncharted” has gained a foothold with young, male moviegoers worldwide, with Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman declaring the film a new franchise in an internal memo this past week.

SATURDAY AM: Refresh for more analysis and chart  Before a big tentpole comes into the marketplace, there’s typically a lull at the box office, but it’s an even bigger lull when the major studios don’t have any new wide entries. Everyone is waiting for Warner Bros. The Batman and many sources tell me it’s bound easily for a $100M+ opening, in fact $115M+, and the advance ticket sales are there to prove that. This despite the 3-hour running time, and from what I hear (I haven’t seen it yet) is a more noir, detective story by Matt Reeves than all the action set pieces in a Christopher Nolan movie. iSpot shows Warner Bros. having spent already $28M+ in U.S. TV spots (that’s even a big number from that data agency’s POV) across such shows as the Winter Olympics, NFL, Good Morning America, NBA games and Big Brother: Celebrity Edition. Note, Warners’ hasn’t weighed in on these industry projections at the time of writing, but note, they’ll safely lowball. That said, no one sees it below $100M.

Naman Ramachandran Sony’s “Uncharted” remained atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second weekend in a row, while Universal’s “Sing 2” maintained its strong showing.“Uncharted,” featuring a galaxy of stars including Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas, collected £3.7 million ($5.1 million) in its second weekend and now has a total of £12.1 million, according to numbers released by Comscore.In second place, animated sequel “Sing 2,” with an array of voice actors including Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson also performed strongly during school half-term holidays in the territory and collected £3.1 million.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian exhibitors are sounding an alarm over the country’s pandemic-prompted box office plunge and the removal of theatrical windows which they say are causing closure of 500 movie screens.Their cry for help comes amid what they say is a lack of signals in Italy pointing to the cinemagoing recovery that is instead currently underway in other European countries.Two years after Italy’s roughly 3,600 cinema screens were first shuttered, 500 of those screens have still not reopened across the country, according to Mario Lorini, head of local exhibitors org. ANEC.Calling for action to counter this crisis, Lorini at a Rome confab urged the government to reinstate the country’s 90-day window between a film’s release in movie theaters and via streaming platforms and broadcasters that was lifted during the pandemic by Italy’s motion picture association.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” continued its domination of the mainland Chinese box office into a third week. But cinemagoing activity continued to slow down after peaking at the beginning of the month with the Lunar New Year holidays.Hollywood new release “Death on the Nile” did not have enough impact to make it beyond fourth place or to change the overall direction of the market. “Lake Changjin II” earned $19.8 million over the weekend, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Sony will release it’s first movie of 2022, and second Tom Holland title after Spider-Man: No Way Home over the 4-day Presidents Day weekend, Uncharted, in what is expected to be a $70M+ haul worldwide.

Universal’s Jennifer Lopez-Owen Wilson romantic comedy Marry Me led the Valentine’s Day Monday box office with $3M, raising its four-day total to $10.99M.

While that result is consistent with the $11-13 million projections for the Agatha Christie adaptation from Kenneth Branagh, they are also less than half of the $28.6 million opening earned in 2018 by its predecessor, “Murder on the Orient Express.” Tracking was so low for the murder mystery because “Orient Express” had an opening weekend audience that was heavily skewed towards audiences over the age of 50; an age demographic that has shown up far less often since the pandemic began, not to mention the usual slowdown in theater turnout that comes on Super Bowl weekend. Reception for “Nile” has been somewhat positive with a 66% Rotten Tomatoes score and a B on CinemaScore.

Refresh for latest…: Hitting 15 offshore markets ahead of its domestic debut and further overseas expansion next weekend, Sony’s Uncharted mapped out an international box office launch of $21.5M. The Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg-starrer was No. 1 in each of its openings, taking advantage of school holidays in some markets and, of course, the Spider-Man Holland halo.

Of all the nominees that screened this weekend, the highest grossing one was MGM/United Artists’ “Licorice Pizza,” which grossed $922,500 from 1,977 theaters, its widest release yet. The next best result was Focus Features’ “Belfast” with just $285,000 from 928 theaters, though that film is having much better fortunes in the U.K.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter“Death on the Nile” collected $12.8 million in its opening weekend. Those ticket sales wouldn’t buy enough Champagne to fill the Nile, but they are sufficient to lead domestic box office charts.The star-studded murder mystery, from Disney and 20th Century Studios, arrived on par with expectations, which had projected a debut in between $11 million to $14 million.

Agatha Christie screen adaptation, starring Gal Gadot, grossed $5.1 million on its opening night, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo database.Another Friday-night premier, JLo romantic comedy “Marry Me,” took second with $3 million in ticket sales.In third was ball-busting reboot “Jackass Forever,” which grossed $2.9 million on Friday night and $32.2 million cumulatively.

J. Kim Murphy There’s a battle between love and “Death” at this weekend’s domestic box office, as the Jennifer Lopez rom-com “Marry Me” and Kenneth Branagh’s follow-up to his 2017 whodunnit “Murder on the Orient Express” both attempt to lure older audiences back to movie theaters in their openings.

The Kenneth Branagh adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Poirot murder mystery is a follow-up to “Murder on the Orient Express,” which was released by 20th Century Fox prior to the Disney acquisition in November 2018 and opened to $28.6 million largely off of turnout from moviegoers over the age of 50. Such turnout was not expected for “Nile” given the pandemic.Reception for “Death on the Nile” has been mildly positive with a 65% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B from audiences on CinemaScore, the latter of which was the same grade given to “Orient Express.” “Nile” is one of the last pre-acquisition projects from Fox to be released by Disney, with “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” coming out on Memorial Day weekend.

Saturday AM Update: Refresh for more analysis and chart Two major studios this weekend took a bold swing and decided to go after the challenged older female demo over Valentine’s Day weekend in a continued pandemic, and while the results were in line with projections, they wouldn’t be anything to brag about in a pre-pandemic marketplace. It’s also the hardest weekend for moviegoing with Super Bowl on Sunday.

Films from Belfast to Drive My Car, from The Worst Person In The World to Nightmare Alley saw ticket sales pop after Academy Award nominations and as distributors kick into high gear for this weekend and beyond, juggling theater counts and ramped up media campaigns that now have a shiny new imprimatur.