Thursday Night Previews: Pikachu Has a Super Start

May 10, 2019

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu pulled in $5.7 million during its previews on Thursday. This is a strong start, but how strong depends on if the film is pulling in more families than Fanboys. If it is weighted heavily to the Fanboys, then it will have legs similar to Shazam!, for example, which would still be enough to match the tracking at just over $50 million for the weekend. If it is more heavily weighted to families, then it has a real shot at topping our $65 million prediction. If it has similar legs to How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, then it will beat that figure by a substantial margin. Legs will also depend on the film’s word-of-mouth and whether or not moviegoers liked the movie more than critics did. As always, we will know more this time tomorrow when Friday’s estimates come out.

The Hustle was the best of the rest of the new releases, earning $774,000 in previews. This is hardly an impressive result, but it is also not a disaster compared to expectations. The film’s awful reviews are not going to help its legs, but it shouldn’t be too front-loaded, thanks to its target audience.

Poms was well back with just $225,000 during previews. However, the film is aimed at more mature women, which is the demographic least likely to rush out to theaters to see a movie opening day. That said, this is still a fraction of the $625,000 that Book Club managed last year. Furthermore, its reviews are much worse, so its legs will likely be shorter.

There is still no report for Tolkien’s previews.

C.S.Strowbridge

Filed under: Midnight Previews, Shazam!, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, The Hustle, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Poms, Tolkien