Paramount/Legendary’s “Street Fighter” is off to a decent start at the box office after its $12.5 million opening day, including $4 million from Thursday previews. With that start, the Capcom fighting game adaptation is looking at a $31 million opening weekend.
While overseas grosses will help this $82 million co-production between Legendary and Capcom, this domestic launch is below the $38.5 million of the R-rated fighting game adaptation “Mortal Kombat II,” which Warner Bros. and New Line released this past May.
“Mortal Kombat II” proved to be a frontloaded film at the box office, and “Street Fighter” could be the same as it has earned a B- on CinemaScore and an 80% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, slightly below the B and 86% earned by “MK II.” Coincidentally, that B- CinemaScore grade is the same grade handed by audiences to the 1994 “Street Fighter” film starring Jean Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia.
Taking the No. 2 spot on the charts in historic fashion is A24’s “You Can See Everything,” topping 20th Century Studios’ survival thriller “Whalefall.” Riding off of critical and audience acclaim, Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder’s documentary took in $5.5 million from just 855 screens as it is now on its way to a $12.5 million opening weekend, topping the estimated $7 million opening weekend of “Whalefall” from a much wider 3,065 locations.
Not only does this opening top the $7.1 million launch of the February Amazon MGM doc “Melania” from twice as many screens, it is on pace to become the biggest opening for any documentary since at least 2013, when Morgan Spurlock’s concert film/documentary hybrid “One Direction: This is Us” opened to $15.5 million.
If concert films don’t count, then this stands as the biggest documentary opening since Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which holds the all-time doc record with a $23.9 million unadjusted opening in 2004. Not bad for a film that A24 kept secret from the public for the past three years until its surprise Telluride premiere this past August.
Since then, the buzz for “You Can See Everything” has been through the roof, with reception scores that stand among the highest for any film this year. While CinemaScore did not poll for this film, it currently stands with a 100% critics and 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while PostTrak audience polls show an unbelievable 92% “definite recommend” rating. That’s a score usually reserved for faith-based films and is well above the 81% “definite recommend” that “The Odyssey” earned this past summer.
As of Saturday morning, A24 reports that more than 1,300 screenings for the doc have sold out. While the studio has yet to divulge any plans on a possible expansion, “You Can See Everything” is well on pace to pass the $22.8 million domestic total of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” to become the highest grossing documentary of the past decade.
Universal/Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s “Other Mommy” is in third, falling a steep 72% to a $7.8 million second weekend after poor critic and audience reception. Despite that, the film is still set to turn a profit with a $44 million 10-day domestic total against a $19 million budget.
“Whalefall” is in fourth with a poor $7 million opening, leaving it to join “Digger” and “The Social Reckoning” among the theatrical duds this October with a $60 million budget. Reception for the survival thriller about a scuba diver swallowed alive by a whale has been stronger than either of those films with a B on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 71% critics and 82% audience, but moviegoers seem to be passing on this film starring “Resident Evil” lead Austin Abrams.
Completing the top 5 is Focus Features’ “Sense & Sensibility,” Georgia Oakley’s adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel which is earning a $6.7 million opening from a primarily female audience on 2,545 screens. The film has earned an A- on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 75% critics and 88% audience.
