Tyler Perry’s “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” scared up $760,000 at Thursday previews.
The Lionsgate release is projected to top this weekend box office with $20 million to $22 million from 2,500 locations, with Lionsgate projecting a start on the lower end of that range.
That would be a step down from the $28 million opening for last year’s “Boo!,” which opened to $855,000 at the Thursday previews and went on to gross $73 million. But with a reported budget of $20 million, this will still be a strong opening for Perry’s ninth Madea film, which he wrote and directed.
Sony’s “Only the Brave” earned $305,000 at the Thursday box office, on track to gross $6 million this weekend. Produced for $38 million, director Joseph Kosinski’s film stars Josh Brolin, Miles Teller and Jeff Bridges as members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite firefighter team that battled a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona in 2013.
The movie has received solid reviews so far: On Rotten Tomatoes, “Only the Brave” holds a score of 89 percent.
Michael Fassbender’s thriller “The Snowman” grossed $270,000 in late night showings. The Universal and Working Title film is projected for a $10 million opening from 1,813 screens against a $35 million budget.
Critics have mostly panned director Tomas Alfredson’s thriller, based on the best-selling Jo Nesbø novel, giving it a 11 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
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Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson star as a pair of detectives tasked with finding a dangerous serial killer.
But the crowded weekend doesn’t end there. “Geostorm,” directed by Dean Devlin from a script he co-wrote with Paul Guyot, stars Gerard Butler as the creator of a climate-controlling satellite system who must go into space to fix it before it triggers a worldwide wave of natural disasters. Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish and Ed Harris also star.
“Geostorm” is expected to contend with “Happy Death Day” for second place this weekend, with an opening in the mid-teens. It had a reported budget of $80 million before reshoots.
“Geostorm” has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 29 percent.