Rumor has it, Straight Outta Compton’s presales are phenomenal. Deadline reported that Fandango is claiming 70% of this weekends advance ticket sales are for the NWA biopic. Universal is projecting a mid-20’s opening, but could it go higher? And if so, how high can it go? 8 Mile opened in 2001 to 51M, a pretty spectacular opening for the Eminem flick. Get Rich Or Die Tryin, however, opened to only 12M in 2005. The difference between those two could also be the reviews. 8 Mile has a 76% Rotten Tomatoes score while Get Rich Or Die Tryin has 16%. Straight Outta Compton is beating both, with an 86%. Does this mean 50M is in its future? Not necessarily, but I’m betting it goes above 25M.
The biggest competition this weekend comes from The Man From UNCLE, which has been tracking soft leading into the weekend. Henry Cavill stars, unproven as a bankable star outside of Man Of Steel, with Armie Hammer at his side (who has the disastrous flop The Lone Ranger under his belt). The big draw here is Guy Ritchie, who directed Sherlock Holmes (among other great films). It hasn’t been getting as many good reviews as Compton, but a 69% is nothing to scoff at either. We should be looking at an opening in the high teens, as UNCLE will still have to compete with Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation for an audience.
Other possible surprises this weekend lie in possible expansions for indie flicks Irrational Man and The End Of The Tour, both which have been performing well in limited release. Either one could crack the top 10 this weekend with the right expansion, though I can’t find specific numbers about how many screens they’re expanding into.
Last weekend, all the holdovers in the top 10 declined less than 10%. This might happen again, as the new openers don’t look to overlap with any of the comedies or kids flicks in terms of audience.
1) Straight Outta Compton- 35M Weekend, 35M Total
2) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation- 20M Weekend, 143M Total
3) The Man From UNCLE- 18M Weekend, 18M Total
4) Fantastic Four- 10M Weekend, 46M Total
5) The Gift- 7M Weekend, 26M Total
6) Vacation- 6M Weekend, 48M Total
7) Ant-Man- 5M Weekend, 158M Total
8) Minions- 4.5M Weekend, 413M Total
9) Ricki and the Flash- 3.5M Weekend, 14M Total
10) Trainwreck- 3.5M Weekend, 97M Total
