Hoping Not To Be Gone In A ‘Flash’: DC Pic Eyes $155M+ WW Opening – Box Office Preview

UPDATED EXCLUSIVE: Angel Studios’ thriller Sound of Freedom starring Jim Caviezel has seen its presales spike to $10M. This is before the pic’s opening tomorrow, July 4, in north of 2,600 locations. Many rivals are tracking this semi-faith-based, based-on-a-true-story title about about former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard who took rescuing abducted children around the globe into his own hands; they’re spotting a 6-day $20M start which is extremely impressive for a non-major studio adult thriller. We’ll see how this plays out. Currently over a million tickets have been snapped up for Sound of Freedom.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” hit theatres on Friday, but given the long-awaited sequel’s weak opening-day numbers, a better title may have been “Indiana Jones and the Box Office of Doom”.

J. Kim Murphy Indiana Jones has begun his last box office crusade, with the fifth franchise entry earning $24 million on its opening day from 4,600 theaters. It’s a figure that includes $7.2 million in previews in Thursday previews. The action-adventure film from Disney and Lucasfilm is expected to debut near the bottom of projections, projecting a three-day opening of $60 million or so. It’ll be more than enough for the Harrison Ford finale to land in the top spot on domestic charts, setting itself up to draw crowds through the Fourth of July holiday — but it’s not exactly the victorious tone-setter for one of the 20 or so most expensive blockbusters ever made. With a whopping $295 million production budget, “Indiana Jones 5” faces quite the trek to theatrical profitability.

SATURDAY AM: Refresh for chart…and more analysis Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is still bound to open at the bottom of end of tracking’s projection of $60M as this morning. I saw an estimate in The Flash vicinity of $55M last night and took an Alka Seltzer out of shock. Hopefully Dial of Destiny doesn’t fall apart tonight and at least stays on course for a Mission: Impossible – Fallout type opening in the $60M range over three days. That figure might be good for exhibition and popcorn sales over the five-day holiday weekend, but it stinks for a movie that has a reported cost of $250M to near $300M before P&A.

Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” two films that have captured the internet’s imagination with their shared July 21 release, have hit box office tracking with early projections expecting solid results for both films. “Barbie,” as long expected, is projected to take No. 1 that weekend with a $70 million-plus opening.

It is quite conceivable another near $200M weekend will be in store at the box office over the weekend of July 21-21.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is gunning for the top spot on box office charts. The fifth and final adventure to star Harrison Ford as the legendary, globe-trotting explorer is targeting at least $65 million from 4,500 North American theaters in its opening weekend. The latest Indy installment is also debuting day-and-date at the international box office, where it’s aiming to add $80 million for a global start of $145 million to $150 million. Those ticket sales are decent, especially for the fourth sequel to a decades-old property that’s aimed at older audiences. But Disney spent a mind-boggling $295 million to bring the action-adventure to life. That’s not including marketing costs, such as a no-expense-spared premiere and afterparty at the Cannes Film Festival where much champagne was tippled. Even in the best circumstances, it’ll take a heroic feat — and a lot of nostalgia from long-time fans of the series — for “Indiana Jones 5” to turn a profit in its theatrical run.

Facing the worst reviews ever for an Indiana Jones movie, the Lucasfilm franchise finale, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is hoping to gain traction with audiences and best its $60M-$65M domestic start, $140M global opening.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian comedy “Beit El Ruby,” about social media’s disruptive impact on the life of a quirky family, has scored a strong opening weekend in Saudi Arabia, ousting “The Flash,” in its second frame, from the top spot. The local farce led by Egyptian superstars Karim Abel Aziz and Kareem Mahmoud Abdel Aziz was released on June 22. It has scored roughly 73,000 admissions across Saudi Arabia, grossing more than $1.1 million in its first frame. “The Flash,” by contrast, garnered a combined total of 91,000 admissions in Saudi cinemas in its first two frames. According to the film’s co-distributor Front Row Arabia, the “Beit El Ruby” bow marks the fifth highest opening for an Arabic film in Saudi, which is the Middle East’s top theatrical movie market.

J. Kim Murphy “No Hard Feelings” came out on top of the domestic box office on its opening day, bedding $6.25 million in Friday and Thursday preview screenings from 3,208 venues. Meanwhile, the top spot for the weekend is a battle between animated adventures; both “Elemental” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” are staying above “The Flash,” which looks to be collapsing in its second outing. Heading into the weekend, “No Hard Feelings” was projected to launch with a mild $12 million. The raunchy R-rated Jennifer Lawrence vehicle is already outrunning those estimates, now forecasting a debut of $15 million or so. “No Hard Feelings” may lose pace to holdovers as the weekend unfolds, but box-office-king-for-a-day is certainly a higher honor than most studio comedies have achieved of late. The once-prolific genre has fallen far from theatrical relevance in recent years, with the past few months containing an expansive slate of box office disappointments and failures, from “The Machine” to “Easter Sunday” to “Bros.”

Warner Bros DC’s The Flash, despite tumbling down with a $55M start, will remain atop the box office with a $16.5M-$24.7M second weekend take as the marketplace largely takes a breath sans tentpoles before Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny arrives for the Independent Day stretch. That weekend 2 slide for The Flash reps a 55% to 70% decline.

Strong showings at the June 11 Tony Awards – both in terms of trophies and on-air performances – seem to have made an equally sturdy impact at the box office, with best musical Kimberly Akimbo and nominated & Juliet – posting their best numbers yet, and best play Leopoldstadt making significant gains over the previous week.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ superhero film “The Flash” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £4.2 million ($5.4 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. In second place, in its third weekend, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” swung to £2.6 million for a total of £20.3 million. In third position in its fourth weekend, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” earned £1.3 million and now has a splashy £22 million total. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” collected £1.1 million in fourth place in its second weekend for a total of £4.99 million. Elysian’s “Greatest Days” debuted in fifth position with £536,955.

Elemental is unfortunately not burning up at the box office.

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash sped into 78 overseas markets this weekend, grossing $75M, below the $85M-$95M we saw coming into the frame. With domestic’s slow-crawl three-day included, that makes for a $139M global opening. This is lower than projections, with general audiences not rushing out to see the deeper universe pic.

The Flash is currently No. 1 at the box office, although the numbers are not quite matching expectations.

Rotten Tomatoes.Both of those audience metrics are below what was received for “Black Adam,” a DC film that opened to $67 million domestic and $140 million worldwide last fall and which “The Flash” had long been expected to top. “Black Adam” grossed just $393 million against a $200 million budget before marketing costs, and it is now likely that “Flash” will fall below that total from a similar if not higher budget.

J. Kim Murphy Nine years after it was first announced, “The Flash” has finally dashed into theaters, speeding toward a debut ahead of the box office competition. But the DC Studios film isn’t exactly matching the lightning pace of its superhero. The Warner Bros. release got started with $24.5 million on opening day, which includes $9.7 million in Thursday previews. That’s enough to set the Ezra Miller film on a surefire pathway to a No. 1 debut on domestic charts, but it’ll be tough for the film to match its projections heading into the weekend — some bullish ones predicting a four-day bow as high as $85 million through the Juneteenth holiday.

The Flash” got off to a slow start in its domestic box office sprint, earning $9.7 million in Thursday previews. That’s barely more than the $8.9 million earned by “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” last weekend and only a bit more than the $7.5 million and $7.6 million earned by “Black Adam” and “Fast X” respectively in their Thursday preview runs.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” enjoyed a $38.9 million (RMB276 million) opening weekend in mainland China. The score was comfortably the biggest by any film between Friday and Sunday and the second biggest opening by a Hollywood film this year in the territory. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway suggests that the film accounted for some 63% of China’s nationwide gross box office over the weekend. Giant screen systems provider, Imax reported that the film earned $5.9 million of the total from its screen network in China, or some 15% of the China total.