Sad Weekend For Lofty-Priced, Original Sci-Fi Fare With ‘Mickey 17’ Opening To $19M+, But There Are A Few Things To Keep In Mind – Box Office
SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU: Warner Bros and Plan B Entertainment’s Mickey 17 is being called at a $19.1M domestic, $43.6M global opening this morning, for a running worldwide tally of $53.3M.
After Neon shepherded multihyphenate Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite to multiple Oscar wins, including Best Picture, Warner Bros. decided to take a big swing on his next outing at a higher budget level. Unfortunately for stakeholders, the result isn’t going to cut it profit-wise, given the original sci-fi film’s $118M cost (not counting P&A).
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That’s the conventional P&L outlook from the studio perspective, anyway. But there are plenty of factors that are frustrating those at Warners who are shepherding the film as well as those who produced it.
At a time when movie executives are trying to keep cinema alive with auteur-driven, genre-defying fare, consider the arrival of Netflix’s $320M Russo Brothers-directed sci-fi robot original family film Electric State. Netflix put it in in two theaters this weekend – iPic Westwood and iPic Fulton Market – with 24 showtimes and an average ticket price of $19.35. The grosses for Electric State will go unreported, with its streaming debut this Friday the main focus. While Nielsen tracks Netflix’s audience in the U.S., global viewership is self-reported and the dominant streaming outlet will no doubt celebrate the movie as a win. And yet Electric State, which is more of a studio accountant’s nightmare than Mickey 17, won’t be written up as a flop. WTF?!
Make no mistake, Mickey 17 is losing money in its first cycle, and the upcoming string of expensive auteur-ish gambles at Warner Bros has me worried. In the end, though, many will likely remember Mickey 17 more for having at least some sort of impact on the culture than they will Electric State. That’s how it goes when it comes to the legacy of movies in cinemas vs. home TV movies.
For all the near-term losses, it’s hard to knock Warner Bros. for committing to Mickey 17, as the studio is bound to make more money than the purveyors of Electric State years down the road. The 21st century mind is still confused as to how streamers make money on features costing upwards of $300M.
Why didn’t Mickey 17 work? Mickey 17 is not Parasite. Parasite was a clever, twisty, noirish social commentary that had audiences cheering for those home invaders, not for the victims of the home invasion. Mickey 17, by contrast, is Byzantine and cold in its execution. That’s why it isn’t bringing in a bigger audience. It’s no Gravity (also a Warner Bros release, which opened to $55.7M). Women were drawn to Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity, and the film had a lot of heart, working both as a popcorn epic and arthouse narrative.
The only solution here for a motion picture studio is that when they’re making original, fresh IP, don’t spend a penny north of $100M. Just don’t. If Brady Corbet can make his three-and-a-half-hour The Brutalist for a net of less than $10M (gross somewhere in the teens), that’s a film finance model all studios should strive for. (Domain has a 10% co-finance stake in Mickey 17).
Global P&A is figured around $80M for Mickey 17; Warners did push this movie with a spot during an NFL playoff game. The movie was shot two years ago, and the release date was pushed by roughly a year. Mickey 17 was suppose to come out on March 29 of last year. The explanation for the holding pattern? Bong was working with studio execs to get that trailer right.
There’s an argument to be made that the push for Mickey 17 could have been louder, particularly with all the release date changes. A studio needs to spend more whenever they hopscotch around the release calendar. There were reports that when the first trailer hit for Mickey 17, it didn’t make much of a splash. But that’s because the movie isn’t established IP. The campaign was tweaked to make Robert Pattinson’s character more relatable in an attempt to expand the audience to women and young men, demos which aren’t the usual targets for sci-fi. However, a finger can be wagged at Warners for not executing a marketing stunt soon after that lackluster first trailer in the five months between the second in order to make-up that delta of awareness. Mickey 17 also skipped fanboy opps like San Diego and NYC Comic-Con.
This opening for Mickey 17 is unfortunately where original sci-fi has lived in recent years, with 20th Century Studios/New Regency’s The Creator (whose $14M debut was hurt by the strikes) and Ad Astra ($19M), which Mickey 17 closely resembles in its chilly, deep space drama; that Brad Pitt starrer earned a B- CinemaScore. Warners has been in this asteroid field before: Remember the $200M Wachowski siblings movie Jupiter Ascending? That generated significantly more red ink, with the movie opening to $18.3M domestic. Gotta make sci-fi fun and emotional if it’s going to work and break out, and you gotta control costs, which is of course easier said than done.
More under the hood on Mickey 17: 65% of ticket buyers were guys, with the largest demo being 25-to-34-year-olds at 38% and a third of the audience older than 35. Diversity demos were 47% Caucasian, 24% Latino and Hispanic, notable 13% Asian American, 10% Black and 5% Native American. IMAX and PLF are accounting for big business on the movie, with 48% of the weekend so far. Imax rang up $3M Stateside or 16% of the weekend. The movie is playing in the West and the Northeast, which is where auteur original sci-fi plays. It’s an LA and NYC film. AMC’s Lincoln Square is the highest-grossing venue with around $124K through Saturday.
Looking for some good news out of all of this? Mickey 17 was the biggest opening of Bong Joon Ho’s career in 59 markets, including the U.S.
There are more pricey auteur gambles at Warners ahead with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners at Easter, Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled $140M epic inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride. That puts a lot of pressure on Legendary’s Minecraft and DC’s Superman to make up any red ink spilled by those titles. No matter how much money or jobs are lost, though, it’s the cinematic theatrical releases that will survive over time.
Comscore calcuated the whole weekend at $56M. It’s the 10th weekend of the year. A year ago, Kung Fu Panda 4 opened to $58.3M, and led a marketplace that collected $136.1M, making this year’s comparable weekend 59% below that level. Receipts for the box office year from January 1 to March 9 stand at $1.15 billion, up 1.28% from the same period in 2024.
Chart updated with Sunday figures:
1.) Mickey 17 (WB) 3,807 theaters, Fri $7.7M Sat $6.7M Sun $4.7M 3-day $19.1M/Wk 1
2.) Captain America: Brave New World (Dis) 3,480 (-320) theaters, Fri $2.1M (-41%), Sat $3.9M Sun $2.5M 3-day $8.5M (-43%), Total $176.5M/Wk 4
3.) Last Breath (Foc) 3,090 theaters (+72) Fri $1.17M (-62%) Sat $1.87M Sun $1.1M 3-day $4.2M (-46%), Total $14.6M/Wk 2
4.) The Monkey (NEON) 2,955 (-272) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-39%) Sat $1.7M Sun $1M 3-day $3.9M (-39%), Total $31M/Wk 3
5.) Paddington in Peru (Sony) 3,085 (-620) theaters, Fri $900K Sat $1.7M Sun $1.25M 3-day $3.85M (-16%), Total $36.9M/Wk 4
6.) Dog Man (Uni) 2,753 (-302) theaters, Fri $750K (-13%) Sat $1.6M Sun $1.1M 3-day $3.5M (-18%), Total $88.7M/Wk 6
7.) Anora (NEON) 1,938 (+1130) theaters, Fri $550K, Sat $770K Sun $540K 3-day $1.86M (+595%), Total $18.4M/Wk 21
8.) Mufasa (Dis) 1,460 (-245) theaters, Fri $371K, Sat $782K Sun $547K 3-day $1.7M (-14%), Total $250.4M/Wk 12
9.) Rule Breakers (Angel), 2044 theaters, Fri $605K, Sat $543K Sun $445K 3-day $1.59M/Wk 1
10.) In The Lost Lands (Vert) 1,370 theaters, Fri $391K, Sat $395K Sun $257K Sun 3-day $1.04M/Wk 1
FRIDAY AM: Warner Bros and Plan B Entertainment’s Mickey 17 did $2.5 million in box office previews Thursday night at 3,200 locations. Showtimes began at 3 p.m. for the sci-fi movie adapted and directed by Bong Joon Ho.
Tracking has the pic hoping to do around $20M. The global outlook as we told you is around $45M. It’s an expensive movie given that it’s original sci-fi, with an initial greenlight of $118M before P&A.
How that stacks up to other sci-fi movies: Mickey 17‘s previews are higher than that of Plan B’s other sci-fi movie Ad Astra from pre-Covid September 2019, which did $1.5M on its way to a $19M opening, a final domestic of $50M and $127.4M worldwide. That astronaut movie starring Brad Pitt cost $100M after reshoots. Mickey 17′s previews are also above the $1.45M in previews made by Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival in November 2016, leading to a $24M opening. Yet, it’s below the $3.5M made by Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, which went on to a $32.7M opening.
PostTrak exits last night for Mickey 17 were very good at 4 stars and a 63% definite recommend. Always note, the fans are out first on a Thursday, in this case the Robert Pattinson and Bong followers.
Rotten Tomatoes critics score is at 80% certified fresh, and audience score is at 81%. Hopefully that will give the latest from the multi-Oscar-winning Parasite filmmaker a lift this weekend.
The rest of the week was as follows:
1.) Captain America: Brave New World (Dis) 3,800 theaters, Thur $920K (-10% from Wednesday), Wk $19.3M, Total $168M/Wk 3
2.) Last Breath (Foc) 3,018 theaters, Thur $511k (-8%), Wk $10.4M/Wk 1
3.) The Monkey (Neon) 3,227 theaters, Thur $520K (-8%) Wk $8.8M/Total $27.1M/Wk 2
4.) Paddington in Peru (Sony) 3,705 theaters, Thur $421K (-3%), Wk $6.2M, Total $33.1M/Wk 3
5.) Dog Man (Uni/DWA) 3,055 theaters, Thur $288K (+3%), Wk $5.4M, Total $85.2M/Wk 5
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