Saturday AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis In what is a record opening during the pandemic for a female-driven feature, Paramount’s Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum romantic comedy adventure The Lost City is bound for a $30.5M opening after a $11.55M Friday. While the older female demographic has been known to be cautious about moviegoing during the pandemic, they indeed showed up at 60% overall, with those over 35 repping close to half the crowd.

Currently that figure is tying with Scream as Paramount’s second best opening during the pandemic after A Quiet Place Part II ($47.5M). In the switch-off from Jim Gianopulos to Brian Robbins as Paramount Studios Boss, the latter was immediately painted by the media as a guy who was primed to embrace theatrical day-and-date as Paramount Global board chair Shari Redstone looked to mushroom the studio’s fledgling streaming service Paramount+. Not true: This guy isn’t going to burn down a great theatrical slate to keep warm. His talent and experience is in building franchises, and that’s both on the streaming and the theatrical side. As the box office bounces back, industry executives are reminded about the riches inherent in the ancillary model, especially in the streaming age. Even though Marvel departed Paramount for Disney a while ago, the former studio is still franchise rich in its Nickelodeon, Hasbro, etc IP, and that’s currency which will go a long way. Even the younger-skewing stuff when made at the right price, is a box office cash cow.

Lost City‘s weekend number is in the range from other Bullock pre-pandemic openers such as the comedy The Heat ($39M) and The Proposal ($34M). It’s a number many in distribution circles were expecting and continues to prove that theatrical isn’t broken, especially for comedies and female-driven fare which have largely been jettisoned to streamers. Comedies still work on the big screen, and Lost City played like a rock concert during its world premiere at SXSW at the Paramount Theatre.

Box office analytics corp EntTelligence has clocked 935K admissions for Lost City so far, with the average ticket price for the pic being $11.90. The audience was spread out here for Lost City with 36% of the audience attending before 6PM on opening day, 40% coming out between 6pm and 8pm and 24% after 8pm.

The Lost City is playing best in the West and the Southeast where nine of the top ten runs. Utah had theaters in the top ten. PLFs we hear are driving 21% of ticket sales. Diversity demos were 51% Caucasian, 22% Latino and Hispanic, 12% Black and 15% Asian/other. Cinemascore here is a B+ with 80% on PostTrak and a 61% recommend, which is very good for this type of movie right now. Rotten Tomatoes’ audience meter is a bit higher at 86%.

While we have some depth in the box office chart, with The Batman seeing a fourth weekend of $18.7M,  RRR roaring a $11.8M record opening for an Indian movie stateside, and Spider-Man: No Way Home clicking past $800M, we’re still use to seeing more depth at the weekend box office. All ticket sales look to be coming in at $81.5M, which is 45% off of weekend 12 in 2019, which was when Universal’s Us drove all movies to a $148.8M weekend. Looking under the hood of that weekend, Jordan Peele’s Us rang up $71.1M, while Disney’s third weekend of Captain Marvel did $34.2M.

The ticket prices for the three-hour action movie, RRR, which includes an intermission are being charged at specialty event prices at $21.75 per seat according to EntTelligence. The pic is booked at 1,200 theaters and notched a $4.5M Thursday preview, the highest ever recorded for an Indian title in U.S./Canada. As Jill Goldsmith observed, director-screenwriter S.S. Ramajouli with RRR is beating his own stateside record, specifically the 2017 epic action adventure Baahubali 2: The Conclusion which opened to $10.4M and finaled at $20.1M. RRR played best in the East and the South with the top 10 theater delivering over $50K, and 46 bookings seeing over $25K. Specialty cinema is very much alive, and it’s with Indian epics.

With the major studios not sopping up all the theaters just yet, Bleecker Street took its Naomi Watts thriller Infinite Storm much wider than intended with 1,525 theaters in 187 markets. The survival mountain climber blizzard movie didn’t wow critics at 59% rotten and turned off PostTrak audiences at 55%. Any money came from the coasts with the Lincoln Square in NYC doing $2K to date. Friday looks to be $262K and the weekend a not very powerful $710K for a $466 theater average.

Also in another big plus sign for arthouses during the pandemic is the Daniels’ martial arts fantasy Everything Everywhere All at Once which racked up a $203,9K Friday at ten theaters for an $20K average with very strong numbers across the board in NYC, LA and respectable results in San Francisco where the pic is booked at the New Mission, Metreon, & Kabuki. The opening for the AGBO produced movie is looking like $553K. That’s a $55,3K theater average which is the second best opening theater average durign the pandemic for a platform release after MGM/UAR’s Licorice Pizza ($86K).

On the other end of the arthouse spectrum, there’s Sony Pictures Classics’ Mothering Sunday, a very naughty R-rated Merchant-Ivory type of film by filmmaker Eva Husson about a maid living in post-World War I England, who secretly plans to meet with the man she loves before he leaves to marry another woman. The pic, which launched at Cannes last summer got a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, which needs to be higher to draw the cautious over 50 crowd back to the cinema. Five runs in NY and LA are seeing an estimated $10K for a low $2K per theater.

MORE…we’re not done yet….

Friday AM: The first big studio wide release in three weeks, Paramount’s The Lost City, kicked off at 4 p.m. Thursday in 3,400 theaters for a $2.5M take. I understand that number doesn’t include any of the previous weekend’s Fandango previews or those at the AMC earlier in the week.

The Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum-Brad Pitt-Daniel Radcliff romantic comedy adventure is expected to hit $25M at 4,248, but it would not be shocking if it lands in the $30M range. Rotten Tomatoes reviews are at 75% fresh. Overall, it’s a solid weekend for exhibition, and we’re hearing that the Indian movie RRR should be ringing up $12M at 1,000 theaters this weekend.

The top theaters for The Lost City on Thursday came from Los Angeles, Orlando, New York City, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Pharr (Texas), Miami, Colorado Springs, El Paso and Sacramento showing a good breadth of regional appeal for the pic.

‘The Lost City’ SXSW Review: Sandra Bullock And Channing Tatum Make Slapstick Comedy Look Good

The comp that’s being used for The Lost City right now is Free Guy, another original comedy, which did $2.2M in Thursday night previews, for a $10.4M Friday and $28.3M opening weekend. Bullock’s previous theatrical release — not counting her Netflix movies The Unforgivable and Bird Box — was Warner Bros/Village Roadshow’s all-star ensemble heist pic Ocean’s Eight, which did $4M in Thursday night previews  in June 2018 before filing a $15.5M Friday, $41.6M.

Among regular films in release, Warner Bros.’ The Batman ends its third week with $48.1M for a running total of $311.4M at 4,302 theaters. The Matt Reeves-directed DC movie looks to do around $20M this weekend. Thursday is estimated to be $2.5M, -11% from Wednesday.

Crunchyroll’s Jujutsu Kaisen 0 ended its first week with $23.1M at 2,286 theaters after a $1M Thursday, -15% from Wednesday. Sony’s fifth week of Uncharted did $10.6M after a $605K Thursday, -13% for a running total of $128.5M. A24’s X ends its first week with $6.1M. Tatum’s Dog ends its fifth week with $5.6M and a running total of $55.7M after a $349K Thursday, -14% from Wednesday.

Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home has $1.4M left to go before it crosses $800M domestic. The pic’s 14th week ended with $4.2M, after a $260k Thursday, -6%, for a current U.S./Canada take of $798.6M — the third-best of all time behind 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936,7 million) and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($858,3 million)