Paramount’s Jackass Forever counted $1.65M from 2,650 theaters from shows that began at 7 p.m. Thursday. The domestic box office weekend’s other wide opener, Lionsgate’s Roland Emmerich disaster epic Moonfall, started with $700,000 from about 2,300 locations.
The Jackass take is higher than Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa which did $1.4M from 10PM showtimes in 2013, and just under the $2.5M midnight preview take of Jackass 3D. It remains to be seen how frontloaded Jackass Forever is; projections see the film with a mid-teens No. 1 take this weekend, unseating Spider-Man: No Way Home. In addition to Thursday night previews, Jackass Forever had an AMC Investor Connect screening on Tuesday. With 74 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, critics love Jackass Forever at 89% fresh.
As for Moonfall, the Centropolis independently financed movie began showtimes at 6PM yesterday, and had some paid previews last weekend in addition to an AMC Investor Connect booking as well given how the major studios sat on the sidelines last weekend with no new titles. Projections are wild for the latest Roland Emmerich directed title swinging from $8M to north of $13M. Critics are sour on Moonfall at 42% Rotten, but there are some notable ones which are enjoying the pic’s camp such as Variety, LA Times and Deadline‘s Pete Hammond. Moonfall wasn’t dinged as much as Geostorm, the 2017 disaster movie from Emmerich’s former creative partner Dean Devlin, which suffered a 17% Rotten rating. Warner Bros. didn’t even hold Thursday night previews for that movie. That movie with a budget around $130M+, tanked at the weekend box office with a $13.7M start and finaled $33.7M. Eighty-five percent of Geostorm‘s $221.6M worldwide ticket sales came from overseas.
Around 300 movie theaters were closed yesterday due a winter storm that moved through the Midwest.
Among regular movies, Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home led yesterday with an estimated $715K at 3,675 theaters ending its 7th week with $14.4M and a running total of $739.3M. The Jon Watts directed MCU title is $21.2M away from beating James Cameron’s Avatar, which is the third highest grossing movie at the domestic box office with $760.5M.
We’ll have more updates for you as they come.