Abigail Sinks Her Teeth Into The Box Office With $10 Million Opening Weekend
Ballerinas might look delicate, but there's a lot of strength behind those dance moves — especially if the ballerina happens to be a vampire. "Abigail," the new horror flick from "Ready or Not" directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, stars Alisha Weir ("Matilda the Musical") as a tiny dancer who turns on the criminal crew who were hired to kidnap her for ransom. Being an extremely gory cat-and-mouse game set in a grand mansion, "Abigail" shares a lot of DNA with "Ready or Not," and it's off to an even better start at the box office.
Variety reports that "Abigail" grossed $4 million on its opening day, including $1 million from Thursday night previews, and it's expected to make at least $10 million over its opening weekend. That's slightly behind earlier projections of a $12-15 million debut, but ahead of the $8 million that "Ready or Not" made over its first weekend. With Alex Garland's "Civil War" expected to hold the No. 1 spot with a second weekend gross of $11 million, "Abigail" will most likely come in at a very close second.
With a reported production budget of $28 million, "Abigail" is pricier than "Ready or Not" ($6 million budget) but should still turn a profit at the box office by the end of its run. But competition from "Civil War" may be limiting its potential, given that both movies are R-rated and vying for the attention of adult audiences.
The war rages on
"Abigail" may in turn be leeching some ticket-buyers away from "Civil War" in its second weekend at the box office, but Garland's speculative near-future war film is still going strong. It was technically the No. 1 film on Friday, if you discount the Thursday preview numbers for "Abigail," and it's expected to gross around $11 million total over Friday-to-Sunday, bringing its 10-day domestic total to $44.2 million. This is indie studio A24's most expensive movie ever, with a production budget of $50 million, but it looks like that investment is paying off. "Civil War" is even playing well overseas, despite its America-focused premise and marketing, grossing an estimated $30 million in its opening weekend according to numbers from Comscore (via Screen Daily).
With kids currently in schools and studios focusing on adults, there are a few too many R-rated releases being crammed into the post-Easter, pre-summer window. Dev Patel's outstanding directorial debut "Monkey Man" is my personal favorite film of the year so far, so it was tough to watch it struggling to fend off lingering competition from "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" and direct competition from "The First Omen" in its opening weekend. It then took a hard blow from "Civil War" last weekend, which knocked it down from No. 2 to No. 6 on the box office charts. Deadline estimates "Monkey Man" will fall to No. 9 this weekend as more new releases crowd in. This one will probably disappear from theaters sooner rather than later, so catch it on the big screen while you can.
Meanwhile, Guy Ritchie's spy comedy "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" is performing above projections with an estimated opening weekend of $9 million, but that's small comfort given its $60 million budget. Ritchie's bad luck streak at the box office continues.