“Minecraft” Now Targets $140M Opening

Estimates for Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” continue to be revised upwards with the title now at $58 million on Friday (including $10.6M in previews), and the overall domestic opening weekend heading for at least $135 million and as high as $155 million.

As such, it’s on track to give “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” opening of $146.3 million a run for its money as the biggest video game movie opening ever. Critics reviews have been mixed, but the film is doing fine with audiences – a ‘B+’ CinemaScore overall but an ‘A’ for its under 18 target audience.

The film’s success is being driven by infrequent moviegoers who’ve generally avoided the cinema post-pandemic but come out for the occasional big event like Barbenheimer.

In addition, the Mid-West & Mountain states are turning out in big numbers for this. Another element is that Warners has reportedly been using highly targeted digital marketing on the film to big success.

Offshore the film pulled in $52.7 million on Friday and is headed for an overseas opening weekend of around $125 million – bringing its worldwide debut to at least $260 million by end of Sunday. It has also proven a rare Hollywood hit in China in recent years with a $11.5 million gross over its first two days. The UK, Germany, Mexico and Australia are also turning out big for the film.

The success comes in spite of a rough and unfinished workprint version of the film leaking online earlier this week. That version was packed with uncompleted visual effects and was quickly taken down, but it doesn’t appear to have impacted enthusiasm for the film.

Source: Deadline

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