Rolling spring breaks remain in effect this weekend, but the feature that’s reaping the benefit of that is Amazon MGM Studios’ second weekend of Project Hail Mary, which is eyeing a hold similar to another March release, 2024’s Dune: Part Two (-44%) at $45M.
Directed and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the heartfelt sci-fi dramedy is flying past $100M today in its sixth day of release, becoming Ryan Gosling’s fourth movie to cross that milestone at the domestic box office after Barbie, La La Land and Remember the Titans. The pic will hold onto all premium formats and Imax.
Comscore reports that 16% of K-12 schools off are this week, with another 12% of colleges on break. Those figures will boom on Good Friday, April 3, when 71% of K-12 are off and 34% colleges in time for Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
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Zazie Beetz in ‘They Will Kill You‘
Warner Bros/Everett Collection
Hitting marquees in the wake of Searchlight’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come last weekend ($9M) is another genre movie, that being the $20M New Line/Nocturna-co-financed They Will Kill You. Starring Zazie Beetz, the pic directed by Kirill Sokolov and produced by Andy and Barbara Muschietti.
Outlook is $10M stateside and another $10M abroad from 65 territories, specifically France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Mexico, Spain and the UK at 7,000 screens. That’s a bigger footprint than what Ready or Not 2 had last weekend, which was 30% offshore and 21 territories grossing $2.8M (and an $11.8M total global start). Stateside locations are 2,700 theaters. Previews start at 3 p.m. for the R-rated movie, which follows Beetz as a housekeeper in an NYC high-rise. She’s unaware of the building’s history of disappearances but soon realizes the community is shrouded in mystery. Currently, first choice on tracking in the U.S. is slightly under that of Send Help, Ready or Not 2 and Companion. It’s about evenly spread among men and women over 25. Last weekend, Ready or Not 2 leaned 52% women/48% men with men over 25 at 37% and women over 25 at 36%. New Line lit the wick on They Will Kill You at SXSW, where it was the closing-night film. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes have it at 71% fresh, which is just under the 75% certified fresh critical rating of Ready or Not 2.
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Alexandra Shipp, Victoria Pedretti, Lili Reinhart and Lola Tung in ‘Forbidden Fruits‘
Independent Film Company/Shudder
Also going wide is IFC’s Forbidden Fruits at 1,525 locations with a forecast of $1.5M-$3.5M. The Meredith Alloway-directed movie starring Riverdale‘s Lili Reinhart also blasted out of SXSW, with reviews now at 76% fresh on RT. The pic’s blurb: At a mall store, Apple leads a secret witch cult with co-workers Cherry and Fig. New hire Pumpkin questions their sisterhood, forcing them to confront inner darkness or meet violent ends. Alloway co-adapted the movie with the playwright of the stage play, Lily Houghton, that theatrical piece originally titled Of the woman came the beginning of sin and through her we all die.