'The Gentlemen' Heading Toward for $10-11+ Million Debut
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: STXFilms's The Gentlemen is pacing right on expectations, bringing in an estimated $3.7 million from 2,165 locations on Friday, heading toward a debut anywhere from $10-11+ million for the weekend. The film received a "B+" CinemaScore.

As for Universal's The Turning, the film brought in an estimated $2.5 million on Friday and is currently looking at a three-day around $6.8 million, though if word gets out about the "F" CinemaScore the film received that could come down a bit.

You can check out all of the Friday estimates right here and we'll be back tomorrow morning with a complete look at the weekend.

FRIDAY AM UPDATE: STXfilms's release of The Gentlemen brought in $725,000 from preview grosses in 1,885 theater on Thursday evening. The performance compares favorably to the $700k The Nice Guys took in ahead of an $11.2 million debut back in 2016 and is just behind the $900k in preview for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. back in 2015, which opened with $13.4 million.

Addtionally, Universal's The Turning began preview showings at 7PM in 2,200 locations yesterday, from which the film grossed $425,000. That's well behind the $1.8 million The Grudge brought in ahead of a $11.3 million opening and a bit behind the $500k Underwater brought in just a couple weeks ago ahead of that film's $7 million debut.

We'll take a closer look at things tomorrow morning once Friday estimates come in. For now you can check out our weekend preview below.

WEEKEND PREVIEW: Following a strong MLK weekend last week, this weekend looks to enjoy some carryover while STX and Universal hope to find their new releases in the top five. STX will debut Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen this weekend while Universal brings yet another early year thriller to cinemas with The Turning. Meanwhile, Sony will look for Bad Boys for Life to repeat atop the weekend box office, following an impressive debut last week.

Set to repeat atop the weekend box office is Sony's release of Bad Boys for Life, which delivered the second largest MLK weekend opening last week and should holdover quite well this weekend. At this time we're looking for the film to take advantage of a strong response from not only critics, but audiences as well, and dip around -54% or so for a $28.8 million second weekend, pushing toward a domestic cume topping $115 million by Sunday.

Universal is looking to take the next two spots with 1917 and last week's new release of Dolittle. 1917 dipped a bit more than we expected last weekend, which leaves us wondering whether this week will see a much more balanced hold or a drop even further for what is looking like a definite Best Picture front-runner. With the film adding even more theaters this weekend, right now we're going out with a forecast around $13-14 million as we expect it to top $100 million by the end of the weekend.

As for Dolittle, that's an interesting one as opening weekend audiences seemed to like what they saw despite the fact critics were not at all kind. The opening weekend performance was a bit higher than expected last weekend, but we can't go any higher than an $11 million forecast this weekend, expecting the film to finish around $43 million or so domestically by the end of the weekend.

Fourth and fifth is where we find the weekend's two new wide releases with the nod for fourth place going to The Gentlemen, which sees director Guy Ritchie return to cinemas with a film a bit closer to the likes of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which put him on the map early in his career. Comps in terms of IMDb page views are tough with this one, but looking at how it is performing alongside titles such as Ritchie's 2015 feature The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and 2013's Jason Statham feature Parker, we're pretty much in line with studio expectations, looking for a performance around $10 million this weekend, if not popping a little higher.

Behind The Gentlemen we have Universal and Amblin's The Turning, which is the third horror/thriller release of the new year so far behind The Grudge and Underwater, neither of which performed terribly well with critics or audiences. Now, to see The Turning delivering similarly with critics -- 21% on RottenTomatoes -- we aren't expecting much here either. Heading into the weekend, the studio anticipates an opening in the high single digits, but we're having a hard time getting too high based on what we're looking at.

In terms of IMDb page views, The Turning is pacing behind Underwater ($7m opening), 2014's Devil's Due ($8.3m opening) and 2016's Blair Witch ($9.6m opening) while pacing a bit ahead of last December's Black Christmas, which debuted with $4.2 million. All of this has us looking for a performance closer to $6-7 million for the weekend. We're going to remain optimistic and forecast a $7 million debut, but that seems more like a ceiling than a floor at this point.

Also opening this weekend is Roadside's The Last Full Measure in just over 600 locations. Looking at previous Roadside debuts that have opened in as many theaters, a performance anywhere from $2-3 million is probably what we should be expecting and if it's able to hit the top end of that range it could find its way into the weekend top ten.

This weekend's forecast is directly below. This post will be updated on Friday morning with Thursday night preview results followed by Friday estimates on Saturday morning, and a complete weekend recap on Sunday morning.

  • Bad Boys for Life (3,775 theaters) - $28.8 M
  • 1917 (3,937 theaters) - $13.6 M
  • Dolittle (4,155 theaters) - $11.1 M
  • The Gentlemen (2,165 theaters) - $10.0 M
  • The Turning (2,500 theaters) - $7.0 M
  • Jumanji: The Next Level (3,121 theaters) - $6.7 M
  • Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2,800 theaters) - $5.6 M
  • Little Women (2,528 theaters) - $4.8 M
  • Just Mercy (1,885 theaters) - $3.2 M
  • Knives Out (1,667 theaters) - $3.0 M


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