‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ $1.7M Previews, ‘Dog Stars’ $850K As Canines Rule Thursday – Box Office

Ketchup Entertainment’s dog rescue of Warner Bros’ Animation’s Coyote vs. Acme was solid in previews with $1.7M. That includes not only Thursday money from showtimes that began at 3PM, but also $446K in sneaks last weekend from U.S. and Canada. The Dave Green directed PG live-action animated hybrid is expected to do plus-or-minus $15M this weekend.

Funny enough, and keep an asterisk in this comp, that’s the same amount of money that 2016’s Zootopia made in previews cash. But that was a different time, and that tentpole was backed by a mega marketing budget. We hear that the P&A spend on Coyote vs. Acme is around $10M after Ketchup’s $50M acquisition.

A good post Covid animation comp here is Universal/Illumination’s Migration which did $1.5M in previews (granted, during a pre-Christmas weekend) which resulted in a $5.7M Friday and $12.4M 3-day. For those counting, Warner Bros’ previous Looney Tunes movie, Space Jam 2: A New Legacy didn’t hold previews when it hit theaters and HBO Max at the same time back in July 2021.

Coyote Vs. Acme is 95% certified fresh with critics and 92% with audiences, which will only help the pic. Now the question is whether it expands beyond its core fervent, social media fans.

Ridley’s Scott’s Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin dystopian future thriller, Dog Stars, began yesterday with $850K. The hope is that this feature could make it to a $12M-$14M start. The comp going into the weekend was the Rami Malek 20th Century Studios thriller The Amateur from last year, but that did $2M in previews, for a near $6M Friday and a $14.8M start. Dog Stars is, of course, way lower in previews. Yesterday’s shows began at 2PM for the R-rated feature take of the Peter Heller novel. Critics weren’t yipping for Dog Stars at 40% Rotten.

Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day ends week 4 for with $53.3M and a running cume of $869.2M, $30.8M away from crossing the nine-century mark at the domestic box office, which would make it the send title past that milestone. At that cume level, the pic is running 5% ahead of Star Wars: Force Awakens at the same point in time, which finaled at $936.6M. Weekend 5 is expected to be around $18M, -54%.

Roadside Attractions and Saban’s Sundance pick-up Buddy did $777K in previews which includes last night’s $527K in addition to $250K in mystery movie screenings. The R-rated Casper Kelly directed dark comedy is booked in 1,258 theaters. Pic which stars Cristin Milioti, Topher Grace and the voice of Patton Oswalt follows a brave girl and her friends who must escape a kids television show.

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