$3.5m previews

Mary Poppins Returns had 4.8 for the whole opening day so this must be decent

very interesting run incoming....wouldn't be surprised at $300m total domestic

$35/$180-$200M run would be good for it

Charlie is saying $10-10.5M FRI for #Wonka adding up to $13.5-14M opening day. Expects a big surge on Saturday from families. Weekend expected to be around $39-42M.

Wonka is far outpacing my OW expectations. It's looking at $250M+ if it pulls a $40M+ OW (6.25X multiplier) and $300M+ looks like a strong possibility.

If Wonka has enough power to sustain an under 30% drop next weekend (with a $40M+ OW) going into Christmas, it could challenge $400M throwing crazy early estimates out.

For $40M+ OW's in December (24 total films)
-13/24 reached $300M+
-18/24 reached $250M+ (not Alvin 1 and 2, Tron2, NT2, Kong, Sherlock)
-23/24 reached $200M+ (not Tron2)

Walkups are really strong for Wonka as expected. It will be even better tomorrow and over the holidays. There is no doubt this is winning Q4. That said this was always the most likely winner and so its not a shocker at all. For a brief time when presales started, I thought Eras could go nuts and sell like 20m tickets(her fan base) but that did only half that number.

For anyone interested, here are the $35M+ OW's since Barbenheimer 5 months ago (21 weeks ago):

-Eras $92M
-Freddy's $80M
-Marvels $46M
-HG $44M

Yes, a whopping FOUR movies managed to do more than $35M over a 21 week period (with only 1/4 achieving a multiplier better than 2X! Congrats to Wonka for high likelihood to join this exclusive club that was far too exclusive.

$40M opening for Wonka probably means $300M+ total. Thank goodness. It's been so long since we've had a real hit lol.

The Barbie and Wonka model: We’re still into the IP idea, just not superheroes. Having a movie star presence is a bit more important (can also go back to Top Gun for this).

No flawless candidates in 2024. Wicked would have everything except they cast Erivo instead of an A list actress. Furiosa is not as recognized a property but has the rising actress. Joker is superhero. Mufasa and Garfield are CGI.

Clearer than ever that unorthodox, "original" takes on existing IP is very "in" at the moment.

$14/.4m Friday + elite word of mouth + holiday schedule + little direct competition = really exciting run incoming

I am betting on Dune 2 breaking out.

Huge drop for Heron. One might be surprised by that, but remember that Asteroid City did the same thing in the summer. These directors have big fanbases, but at this point if you're not into Miyazaki or Anderson then you probably never will be.

Solid for Hunger Games and Godzilla Minus One though.

Excellent for Wonka, Timothee is now officially an A list actor and top of his generation

Anime in general tends to be very frontloaded, since its core audience usually rushes out and it rarely expands beyond that. A sub-60% drop for the weekend would actually be pretty good by those standards, and with the holidays near it could still rebound enough to crack $40M. Regardless, it's already on track to double Miyazaki's last highest grosser in America, so it's already a solid success story.

Poppins 5-day (19th-23rd): 32.3 million, 171 million total
Wonka 3-day: 39 million

Looking good

Last time these dates aligned, Ferdinand did 84m from a 13m OW. Same multiple gets Wonka 252m.

Considering Heron had a lot of premium screens weekend 1, not a totally horrible 2nd weekend for it. Hope it holds decently through the month.

Overseas hold for Wonka is also uber impressive. Its going for Top 5 finish WW with great holiday run.

Random fact, Timothy's second highest grossing movie box office wise in a leading role was Love The Coopers at $26,302,731 behind Dune.

So with Wonka he will have his second $30M+ movie in a leading role. Given the drops of family films last week (-22% for Trolls and -31% for Wish) a big family film was going to do $20M+ regardless pre -holidays and Wonka as an IP is a well known book with 2 previous well known movies (last one $200M+ performer with Depp now adjusts to $358.62M), I still think it's still pre-determined to see how box office bankable Timothy himself is.

He definitely is a big factor here in the successful launch but a well reviewed family movie in a market where last week only 1 movie made more than $9.5M was a completely open market for a family movie breakout.

Even with a Dune breakout, once Timothy can launch a movie like Tom Holland did like Uncharted to $44M+ OW and $400M+ globally then I'd say he's proven his box office pull.

Challengers with Zendaya is going to be interesting. If that is a big breakout for her, she will have translated post Spider-man to box office pull. I do think a star driven movie like Challenges for her vs Timothy launching the 3rd blockbuster iteration of Wonka will be different levels of difficulty.

Regardless, Dune will benefit and it was very smart of the studio in hindsight to push it to March when the cast could promote it. That certainly benefitted Wonka but just waiting to see what Timothy can launch film wise that wasn't already bound to be big without him to say he's truly a box office pull.

And Wonka itself is still a fantastic launch for December and going into the holidays. The box office desperately needed something (anything)!

I think Costner's Horizon could fit the mould. Costner in westerns feel like a specific type of IP and its going to possibly play like a Yellowstone movie and have big pull in the heartland. Season 1 airing years later on CBS have also expanded it's reach. He may have a shaky box office record but Costner + Western = $$$

I don’t know how I feel about it since he still comes off more of a boy than a man to me, but Chalamet has always seemed like “the guy” for his male actor generation like up and coming sports prospect who was tipped to become the face of the league, I don’t know if I can put a finger on why, maybe it was timing. Either way I think that kind of trickles out to the normal people and they start to see him as a top lead.

Until he anchors IP that wouldn't have been big without him, his box office pull is still a work in progress. I don't doubt he's a star of this generation but so was Daniel Radcliffe for his and if they casted someone else in that role I feel that person if they embodied the role would have been.

Chris Pratt got Jurassic Park, Mario, Lego Movie, GOTG franchises. He certainly helped those movies especially GOTG but there was IP that turned him into a movie star.

Ryan Reynolds has reached it because I don't think anyone else could have launched a character barely in the original movies to consecutive $320M+ movies and has also anchored blockbusters like Free Guy.

I do feel like other up and comers could have been Wonka because its a role that everyone already knows for almost 50 years that families will show up for.

Gal Gadot Wonderwoman. She anchored a $400M movie but I don't think she has significant box office pull outside of IP driven movies as of now.

If Cillian Murphy has a $150M+ movie without Nolan anchoring it, he now has box office pull.

Margot has reached it because a Barbie movie was a completely shaky prospect on paper and she got it to all time block buster list status. But if there were already 2 Barbie movies before that did huge business and Margot was doing the third, think it's a different scenario of a proven IP with box office power.

Not saying Timothy won't get there but box office pull as a Timothy vehicle that people wouldn't have shown up to without him will be interesting to see. What will be his post Doom movie?

Yeah, lol. Chalamet isn't A-list because of one hit. Typical KJ blowing everything out of proportion.

He's been a part of several hits and doesn't have any embarassing flops on his record. What else do you need from an A-list? Sorry Algren but this generation has no interest in manly men. Chalomet is the best you're gonna get.