EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate‘s prequel The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is taking a look at a Thursday evening between $5.75M-$6M after showtimes that started at 3PM.
Once more, these numbers aren’t from the studio and we may see a barely completely different outcome by morning. Whereas some will likely be fast to yell that Marvel Studios’ misfire final weekend, The Marvels, started its weekend journey with a Thursday evening of $6.6M which resulted within the lowest opening ever for a Disney MCU title at $47M, notice that Songbirds & Snakes value half the worth of The Marvels‘ $200M at $100M. Moreover, Lionsgate all the time covers their danger on an enormous title with a bulk of overseas gross sales.
Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in ‘The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’
Lionsgate
Projections heading into the weekend have been at $50M+ stateside, $100M+ worldwide. We’ll see the place this lands. A part of the uphill battle for the film is that it’s a model new forged sans franchise star Jennifer Lawrence, and one character to crossover from the core franchise, that being Coriolanus Snow. Much like that first film when Lawrence wasn’t a marquee title, Lionsgate is rolling the cube on the Suzanne Collins model’s relaunch on West Aspect Story actress Rachel Zegler as fiery tribute Lucy Grey Baird and even fresher-face, UK actor Tom Blyth enjoying Snow.
Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes‘ preview evening isn’t that removed from Quick & Livid spinoff Hobbs & Shaw‘s $5.8M (7PM showtimes begin) which went on to a $60M opening; this even if film was extraordinarily male-leaning to Starvation Video games‘ feminine crowd. One other comp that’s getting used is Amazon/MGM’s Creed III which did $5.4M in its Thursday evening preview and yielded a $58.3M 3-day. Nearer to the feminine demo is Conjuring spinoff The Nun which minted a $5.4M Thursday and $53.8M 3-day with girls turning out at 49% per CinemaScore over its weekend.
Warner Bros.
Observe, Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was by no means going to publish a preview within the neighborhood of the final Starvation Video games: Mockingjay Half 2 which got here out in November 2015 and did a $16M Thursday evening for the bottom home opening within the Collins franchise of $102.7M. Nor was Songbirds & Snakes certain to emulate Harry Potter 2016 spinoff Incredible Beasts and The place to Discover Them which noticed a Thursday evening of $8.75M and 3-day of $74.4M U.S./Canada. Basically, Starvation Video games‘ fanbase isn’t as broad as Harry Potter‘s. (Incredible Beasts skewed 55% feminine to Mockingjay 2‘s 60% feminine, with a majority of Potter followers older with 65% over 25 vs. Mockingjay 2‘s 50/50 break up for the beneath/over 25 crowd).
A part of the problem right here for Lionsgate in getting audiences out to the prequel is that Starvation Video games followers weren’t absolutely conscious there was a brand new novel by Collins: It was launched through the coronary heart of Covid in Might 2020 solely seeing 500K gross sales in its first week per NPD BookScan when bookstores have been closed. That gross sales determine finally rose to three.5M copies offered.
Whereas critics numbering 112 on Rotten Tomatoes are giving Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes the bottom rating within the franchise at 64% recent, the sequence has typically been critic proof, and has held fairly properly through the vacation season. Mockingjay 2 amassed $198.5M in its first ten days of launch because of the Thanksgiving day stretch.
Social media analytics agency RelishMix says that social media convo on Songbirds & Snakes “is working mixed-leaning-positive with snarky Gen Z and youthful new Millennial followers whistling their praises for the newest entry to the franchise. Many are enamored by the nostalgia the franchise brings again from their childhoods: ’14-year-old me is so completely happy, and 25-year-old me is sobbing.’ Others comment, ‘Look, I’ve completely no thought what this guide is about, however after I noticed that bowing pose, it’s like seeing Katniss once more. This film will heal trauma from my childhood.’”
L to R: John Dory (Eric André), Spruce (Daveed Diggs), Child Department (Justin Timberlake), Floyd (Troye Sivan), and Clay (Child Cudi)
Common
Different preview figures we’ve heard about, however Common hasn’t weighed in on, is DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls Band Collectively with round $2M off showtimes that started at 2PM. That threequel is taking a look at a excessive $20M-low $30M begin. The film additionally has the bottom RT rating within the franchise with critics at 62% recent. If that preview determine is true, it’s heads and hair above Trolls‘ $900K in Thursday previews, and better than the Tuesday evening previews of Illumination/Common’s Sing at $1.7M.
TriStar and Spyglass Media have Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving horror movie which ought to do within the teenagers in its opening weekend whereas Searchlight’s Taika Waititi comedy Subsequent Purpose Wins is taking a look at single digits. Extra on these within the AM.