Diversity Rules At The B.O. As Disney’s ‘Black Panther’ & ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Take Top Two Spots

March 10, 2018

Saturday AM writethru following Friday midday update: Disney will own the box office with two films touting diverse casts, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther now at No. 1 with an estimated $41.5M and Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time with $35.3M.

At a time when our U.S. President cultivates division in society, Hollywood and moviegoers counter that by supporting pics with positive messages of inclusivity.

A Wrinkle in Time is arriving where tracking saw it in the mid-$30Ms, with the added bonus that it beat Marvel’s monolith Black Panther on Friday, $11.3M to $10.2M. Generating an 89% positive score among 13-17 year olds, A Wrinkle in Time is clearly a weekend matinee movie and before calling its ticket sales final, let’s see how it plays out later tonight.

Currently, the pic’s openingis coming in higher than many other feature kid lit adaptions including Wonder ($27.5M), Bridge to Terabithia (another Newbery Medal winner at $22.56M), The Golden Compass ($25.78M), Where the Wild Things Are ($32.7M) and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief ($31.2M).

DuVernay had mentioned at screenings and the premiere that A Wrinkle in Time was squarely made for kids, and the under 18 bunch at 31% and the under 25 set at 39% are giving the pic an A- per CinemaScore. Females repped close to 70% of Friday night’s audience. With an overall B CinemaScore, who is dragging down Wrinkle‘s grades? Why that would be adults overe 25 who turned up at 61% and graded the pic a B-.

Rival studio executives would like nothing more than to gaze on Disney’s humanity at the B.O. this weekend, having buzzed that a $30M-ish start for A Wrinkle in Time just doesn’t cut it profit-wise in regards to this $100M-plus production (a $40M-plus start would put this pic at a better end-game stateside which is where it needs to make most of its money).

However, it is because of Disney’s enormous global B.O. track record that they’re able to swing at the fences with this $100M-plus live action production (some believe it’s more in the net $120M range before P&A) of A Wrinkle in Time with a big-name cast including Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Zach Galifianakis, Mindy Kaling, etc.

A Wrinkle in Time is a very ambitious property for any director to bring to the screen with its physics sci-fi narrative. As co-scribe Jennifer Lee told Anne Thompson at Deadline’s fellow site IndieWire, “You have to evoke what it feels like…You can’t translate it literally. It’s an evocative book that everyone has a unique relationship with. You can’t try to make it definitive. You have to be inspired by what is there, show them something unique.” Bringing the 56-year old novel up to speed in regards to science and grounded humanity was key. Critics were hard on A Wrinkle in Time this weekend at 42% Rotten, but they also pounded on the 2003 ABC Movie directed by John Kent Harrison. No wonder why it took so long to turn this book into a movie. One reason we’ve heard was because author Madeleine L’Engle didn’t want to sell film rights for sometime. Prior to Disney’s purchase of Miramax in 1993, the Weinstein-run company purchased the film franchise rights to A Wrinkle in Time in an effort to revive what was then a stalled family pic business with the hopes of turning the first novel into a $15M-budgeted film. Screenwriters like John August and Beauty and the Beast‘s Linda Woolverton took cracks at adapting L’Engle’s story about 13-year old Meg Murry who seeks to rescue her father from a time trap with the help of her genius brother Charles Wallace and three goddesses. Disney would retain the rights in 2010, with Jeff Stockwell writing. Lee landed the assignment to write a new version four years ago with DuVernay choosing the project to direct in February 2016 after passing on Black Panther.

Even if Wrinkle isn’t a global B.O. win for Disney in the way that its Walden Media co-production The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was ($745M), there’s an enormous amount of takeaways here with A Wrinkle in Time.

First of all, as studios look to mine new franchises, why not take a shot with A Wrinkle in Time? And if you’re going to make the movie, it demands to be built off a huge budget. Film financiers will argue otherwise or counter that franchises should be started on budgets lower than $100M, however, you can’t make A Wrinkle in Time on Wonder‘s $20M ledger. The intent here was to eventize a classic childrens novel with a fanbase that had never been brought to the screen before. Not making A Wrinkle in Time would be mistake.

.Ava DuVernay at *A Wrinkle in Time* world premiere.
Deadline

Second, Disney has made a movie that many children of color can look back on, and see themselves in. The pic’s stars such as Winfrey and Kaling mentioned that such fare didn’t exist in the cinema when they were growing up. Similar to Black Panther, there was the crowdfunding initiative Give A Child The Universe sponsored by Color of Change and AMC Theatres to give underprivileged kids the opportunity to see A Wrinkle in Time for free this weekend.

Third, Disney fully backed and supported the vibrant vision of a passionate female director (the first African American woman to direct a $100M-plus event film; and a movie with a diverse cast and crew), and such major studio corporate maneuvers shouldn’t be questioned, rather celebrated and continually championed. DuVernay got to make the movie she wanted to make from a literary property she’s cherished since childhood. Yes, we heard stories about test screenings and changes, but that’s part of the Disney way of “plus-ing” and making a movie the best that it can be. This wasn’t a scenario where a studio bailed on a movie rather as we’ll detail in the next update, there was a tremendous promotional push (with an invigorating multi-cultural angle) behind A Wrinkle in Time with Winfrey even dropping her promo machine into fifth gear with custom spots and special looks during Queen Sugar as well as Witherspoon, Winfrey and Kaling on the March cover of O as well as a special New York City screening hosted by the magazine.

Is A Wrinkle in Time‘sopening to close in the wake of Black Panther, which is potentially cannibalizing its audience? Sure, but you want to launch the film at a time such as now, during a rolling spring break, to capitalize on the best business. Even if kids are in school that’s a benefit as they can attend the film via a field trip.

As a former wise female distribution executive once exclaimed to me on a Sunday morning following her film’s shortcoming at the box office seven years ago, “We don’t go into these things to fail.”

Industry estimates for the weekend of March 9-11:

1..) Black Panther (DIS), 3,942 theaters (-142) / $10.2M Fri (-37%) / 3-day: $41.5M (-37%)/Total: $562.3M/Wk 3

2..) A Wrinkle in Time (DIS), 3,980 theaters / $11.3m Fri (includes $1.2M previews)/3-day: $35.3M /Wk 1

3..) Strangers: Prey at Night (AVI), 2,464 theaters / $3.8M Fri /3-day: $9.6M /Wk 1

4..) Red Sparrow (FOX), 3,064 theaters (+8) / $2.3m Fri (-61%)/3-day: $7.78M (-54%)/Total: $30.7M/ Wk 2

5..) Peter Rabbit (SONY), 3,112 theaters (-495) / $1.5M Fri (-26%) /3-day: $7.6M (-23%) /Total: $94.3M/Wk 5

6..) Game Night (NL/WB), 3,061 theaters (-441) / $2m Fri (-33%)/3-day: $7.1M (-31%)/Total: $44.3M/Wk 3

7..) Death Wish (MGM), 2,882 theaters (+35) / $1.75M Fri (-59%)/3-day: $6.1M (-53%)/Total: $23.3M/Wk 2

8/9/10) Annihilation (PAR), 1,709 theaters (-403) / $827K Fri (-46%)/3-day: $3M (-45%)/Total: $26M/Wk 3

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (SONY), 2,157 theaters (-156) / $656K Fri (-37%)/3-day: $3M (-32%)/Total:$397.5M/ Wk 12

Gringo (AMX/STX), 2,404 theaters / $1M Fri /3-day: $3M /Wk 1

11..) The Hurricane Heist (EST), 2,402 theaters / $900k Fri /3-day: $2.6M /Wk 1

12…) The Shape of Water (FSL), 1,552 theaters (+720) / $550K Fri (+70%) / 3-day: $2.1M (+45%)/Total: $60.7M/Wk 15

1st Update, 8:32AM: If there’s one headline Disney will own this weekend, it’s that they’ll have the No. 1 and No. 2 box office spots with films that star diverse ensemble casts: Marvel’s Black Panther and Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time, which drew $1.3 million from previews Thursday starting at 7 PM.

Tracking has had A Wrinkle in Time in the low-to-high $30 million range over the past four weeks, but there’s a small constituency of analysts who believe the feature adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 Newberry Medal winning sci-fi children’s novel could cross into the $40Ms, which would be a decent start for a production reportedly budgeted at $100M. As has been widely reported, A Wrinkle in Time is the first mega-budget live-action event film to be directed by a woman of color.

Wrinkle in Time has a 43% Rotten Tomatoes score, though that may not necessarily impede its traction among women and young girls, its prime demo. There have been other kids films with platinum RT scores that have floundered at the B.O. (Paddington 2 at 100% certified fresh didn’t create a stampede with $40M, while Peter Rabbit, which will likely hit $100M, did so off a ho-hum 60% fresh RT rating.)

A Wrinkle in Time will be in play at 3,980 locations. Broken down, that’s 2,800 3D locations, 258 IMAX, 407 PLF, and 128 D-Box.

Note that families don’t really come out until tomorrow’s matinees, so we’re likely to see Black Panther win tonight. A Wrinkle in Time‘s preview cash is in between Alice Through the Looking Glass, which made $1.5M ahead of a $34M opening, and Wonder‘s $740K which saw a $28M debut. Wonder, which was based on a much beloved novel, legged out to $132M off 85% fresh reviews and a $20M production cost, while Alice 2 crashed at the B.O. with $77M off a $170M production cost despite earning an A- CinemaScore.

Black Panther, after collecting $4.1M yesterday, is starting its weekend with a domestic total of $520.8M. Many bet it will be No. 1 with $40M-plus in its fourth weekend.

A Wrinkle in Time will hope to hold its own not only against Black Panther stealing crowds away but also The Strangers: Prey at Night from Aviron. Yes, that horror movie. The R-rated pic could eat into an older femme crowd. Strangers 2 tracked between $6M-$10M earlier this week and last night made $610,000. The reported $5M microbudget sequel to the 2008 Bryan Bertino title, which he also co-scripted, follows a family in a secluded mobile home park who are are visited by three masked psychopaths one night. Chaos ensues. Pic has a 38% Rotten score.

There’s another mid-budget guy action pic in the marketplace, a genre that’s been overpopulated with titles like Den of Thieves, The Commuter and Death Wish. It’s Entertainment Studios’ The Hurricane Heist starring True Blood‘s Ryan Kwanten. Pic is expected to earn between $2M-$7M at 2,400 locations. Critics aren’t fans of the pic at 22% Rotten.

Amazon has the Nash Edgerton R-rated pot action comedy Gringo, which is being handled by STXfilms via a distribution deal. Starring Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Thandie Newton, and David Oyelowo, the pic is only expected to clear between $2M-$5.5M million at 2,404. It has 36% Rotten, and that won’t be enough to convince the older Amazon specialty demo to attend.

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