“Blink Twice” poster featuring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum.
Channing Tatum’s Blink Twice and Bill Skarsgård’s The Crow are no match for Deadpool & Wolverine at the weekend box office.
After getting bumped from No. 1 last week by Alien: Romulus, Deadline is projecting that 20th Century Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine will reclaim the top spot at the domestic box office with an estimated $17.8 million in ticket sales in 3,840 North American theaters. It the estimate holds, it will bring the superhero movie’s running domestic tally to $576.6 million.
Another 20th Century Studios release, Alien: Romulus, is projected to earn $16 million at 3,915 theaters to earn the No. 2 slot in its second weekend, to boost its domestic total to $72.5 million, per the trade publication.
Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Entertainment reports that Blake Lively’s romantic drama It Ends with Us is projected to take the No. 3 with $11.8 million in 3,839 North American theaters, which will bring its running total to $120.8 million in its third weekend of release.
Blink Twice—a psychological thriller from first-time director Zoe Kravitz—is projected by Deadline to make $7.1 million in 3,067 theaters for the No. 4 spot at the weekend box office.
Released by Amazon/MGM studios, the production budget for the film—which stars Tatum, Naomi Ackie, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater and Alia Shawkat—was $20 million before prints and advertising, Deadline noted.
Coming in at No. 5 is the faith-based film The Forge, released by Sony subsidiary Affirm. Per the studio, The Forge is projected to make $6.4 million domestically in its opening weekend.
Bill Skarsgård in “The Crow.”
‘The Crow’ Crashes With No. 8 Finish
The opening weekend was disastrous for The Crow, a remake of the 1994 supernatural thriller starring Bill Skarsgård, who is reprising the role originated by the late Brandon Lee.
Deadline projects the film will debut at No. 8 at the domestic box office with anywhere between $4.5 million and $5 million in ticket sales at 2,752 theaters.
According to Variety, The Crow had a $50 million production budget before P&A. If there’s any saving grace, Lionsgate is only on the hook for the $10 million it laid out for the film’s distribution rights, Variety noted.
The Crow was crushed by Rotten Tomatoes critics, who gave the film a combined 20% “rotten” rating based on 80 reviews. At least The Crow found some favor with viewers using RT, giving the movie a 64% “fresh” audience score based on more than 250 verified user ratings.
While bad reviews don’t always signal the death knell for a new movie, good reviews, on the flip side, don’t automatically guarantee success as evidenced by the positive notices for Blink Twice.
RT critics gave the movie a 78% “fresh” rating based on 144 reviews. The RT Audience Score was 68% fresh based on 250-plus verified user ratings.
Also opening in limited release this weekend is the twisty horror thriller Strange Darling, which Deadline estimates will earn $1 million in domestic ticket sale in 1,135 theaters.
Written and directed by J.T. Mollner, Strange Darling stars Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner, and marks the cinematography debut of actor Giovanni Ribisi.
Note: This article will be updated on Sunday with final domestic weekend estimates as well as international box office estimates. The final numbers for this weekend’s box office will be released on Monday.
