Beyonce Battles Godzilla in Theaters This Weekend
by EG
Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, a concert film from the pop superstar, hits theaters this week on one of the quieter weekends of the year. Beyonce's film is very unlikely to do the big business seen by Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, but Beyonce is still likely to have the top movie of the week. Her biggest competition is Godzilla Minus One, yet another appearance by the giant Japanese lizard. Godzilla could do decent business, but Beyonce is the favorite to come out on top. Read on for details.
Via Deadline.
AMC‘s second concert movie theatrical release, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, is hoping to liven up what typically is a dull frame at the box office — the post-Thanksgiving/early December downer corridor — with what’s looking like a $30M global opening, maybe $40M.
The second movie ever to be distributed wide by an exhibitor arrives just as AMC’s first title, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour — which was a very bright spot at the fall box office with $250M WW — winds down on screens and winds up in homes on December 13 for digital purchase.
Sources have said for quite some time that despite the mammoth success of the Renaissance concert tour — with ticket sales close to $600M, per Live Nation back in August, making it the eighth-highest-grossing concert tour of all time and the second highest-grossing by a woman — the singer’s appeal is vastly different from Taylor Swift’s. Hence, an opening weekend stateside similar to Eras Tour (the best this fall season at $92.8M domestic) was never to be expected for Renaissance. If the new movie, which is hot with Black audiences and older women, is lucky, it will be lead the box office with a $20M domestic start, and possibly $20M abroad. We saw the disparity in the first-day presales of both concert movies: Renaissance rang up an estimated first day of $6M to Eras Tour’s $37M (that latter figure ultimately swelled to $65M).
We hear that presales for Renaissance are behind that of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story ($10.5M in 2021) and slightly ahead of that of that year’s In the Heights ($11.5M), all compared before their opening weekends. We hear that Renaissance presales at AMC and Regal theaters, which have a big footprint with Black moviegoing audiences, look very robust, while No. 3 circuit Cinemark does not.
Still, before Swift, an opening for a wide release concert movie stateside between $15M-$20M is very good. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never opened to $29.5M in 2011, while Michael Jackson’s This Is It saw $23.2M in 2009. Heck, U2’s Rattle & Hum back in their heyday of 1988 saw a first weekend of $3.8M in 1,391 theaters — low by benchmarks then and today. Sources reiterate that Swift’s Eras Tour is “a unicorn” given the fact that it was a very hot, sold-out live tour with the movie arriving in theaters at the end of its U.S. leg and before the start of its European dates.
Beyoncé will have the command of PLFs and Imax screens at the box office, though they’ll be shared with Toho International’s Godzilla Minus One. She’ll be booked in 2,539 theaters, with another 2,780 abroad in 94 territories. Renaissance stateside previews begin at 7 p.m. Thursday. The movie similar to Eras Tour will play Thursday-Sunday at movie theaters. Big markets for the pic in Weekend 1 will be Mexico, UK, South Africa, Kenya, Australia and Germany.
No Renaissance reviews on Rotten Tomatoes yet, but Deadline’s Katie Campione gave the movie a thumbs-up, saying, “The film captures all the spectacle and energy that makes Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour feel legendary.”
The biggest opening for a movie in early December belongs to the Warner Bros.’ 2003 Tom Cruise pic The Last Samurai, at $24.2M, while Disney’s third weekend of Frozen 2 in early December 2019 counts the most amount of money for a film at No. 1 with $35.1M. After Disney’s Wish posted a lackluster domestic start with $19.6M 3-day, $31.6M 5-day, don’t expect it to lead this weekend. Meanwhile, industry estimates expect the No. 1 movie over the Thanksgiving holiday, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, to ease by 55% in Weekend 3 with a gross around $13M. The Lionsgate release on Monday became the 23rd movie in 2023 to cross $100M in U.S./Canada.
Get the rest of the story at Deadline.