Tarzan Surprises at the Box Office — Now Projected to Reach $42.6M for 4 Day Weekend
This is YUGE. The experts got it wrong. Forget the $8.5M for opening day Friday they were projecting after the matinees — LOT did $13.2M on Friday. That’s 50% over what they thought. Take THAT, experts. [Beats chest like Akut.]
In the world of Box Office watching, that’s a huge gap between the projections after the matinees on Friday, and the actuals at the end of the day. And THAT now projects to $42.6M for the 4 day weekend Fri-Mon and of course THAT too could be wrong if audience digital word of mouth is strong enough to quell the bad vibes created by the critics.
Here is exactly what Deadline Hollywood is reporting as of 11:13PM Friday night:
While we saw The Purge: Election Yearbeating both [Legend of Tarzan and BFG] earlier today, The Legend of Tarzan is stronger than we thought tonight with a $13.2M Friday and four-day of $42.6M. But still that’s not enough stateside to swing the $180M production into the black. Contributing to Tarzan’s improved ticket sales is the A- CinemaScore it received from moviegoers, a relief to its 33% Rotten Tomatoes score among critics.
They are correct that $42.6M for 4 days is not enough to make it profitable but that A- Cinemascore may drive it up a little bit more over the weekend. We need $40M by Sunday night, which now seems to be not completely outside the realm of the possible.
And in any event — the f-word is gone from the discussion.
LOT is absotively NOT a flop.
[Beats chest again.]
UPDATE 8:36AM: Deadline has now upgraded Friday from 13.6 to $14M, and the weekend projection from 42.6 to 43M. Deadline also notes:
Tarzan also scored an A+ with the under-18 bunch who repped 20% of the crowd. Alexander Skarsgard reeled in the women who turned up at 51%, 55% over 35.
5 comments
What a fantastic turnaround for the film. This number is much better than the low 20’s reported earlier.
Credit where credit is due – the non-stop parade of Skarsgard’s abs in the posters and trailers definitely played a role. Deadline says, “Alexander Skarsgard reeled in the women who repped 51% of the crowd, 55% over 35.”
I’m so thrilled to read this, and I think we’ve all seen a little of this in the theaters, where the general tone of the audience was that they enjoyed it — laughing appropriately and clapping.
I definitely saw couples, both young and older, so it falls into the date night category, but I also saw a lot of women. So, yes, Alex’s abs seem to have played a role. He has a fairly dedicated following, I’ll raise my hand as one of them, but many of us appreciate an action movie, especially one that has a really strong romantic thread running through it and a little bit of comedy. So while Alex’s abs may get some butts in the seats, I think the quality of the movie is what keeps them coming and it’s the quality that makes it a good movie-watching experience once the curtains close.
Another interesting article from Forbes regarding LoT’s turn at the box office.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2016/07/02/box-office-legend-of-tarzan-snags-surprisingly-mighty-14m-friday/#4b1acb004e00
So far I have seen a huge disconnect between the audience score and critics (33% critics vs. 73% audience score at RT), polarized reviews among critics and the gaps in projections – Tarzan really seems to be a surprise movie of this summer, in many aspects.
I have a feeling that somehow it’s a battle now between the critics and the audience. Many viewers who gave their positive feedback at RT didn’t miss an opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction with the critics.
July 7 never seemed so far away…..
I am so happy that audiences are finding some love for Tarzan and that they are not blindly following the critics or perhaps many don’t even bother to read the ctitics anymore . The critics and prognosticators seem way out of touch with the viewers on this one. And I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.I am with Lindie825 regarding Skarsgard fans of which I am one,. There are indeed many of us who while fully appreciating the beauty that is Skarsgard, we also enjoy quality action films with some romance and humor. Tarzan seemed from the beginning to promise all of that too.
I know LOL is not out of the woods yet on profitability but it’s moved out of flop territory like Michael said and that is something to crow about.