Early Weekend Estimates: APES Pulls in $22M Friday, Tracking to $52-$56M Opening Weekend

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

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Early estimates based on Friday’s box office figures indicate a strong overperformance from 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes in its opening weekend.

Entering the week, pre-release tracking had the latest installment of the Apes franchise starting in the $40 to $45 million range. However, pre-sales leading into Friday—particularly in premium large formats nationwide—has raised the ceiling for the film’s opening weekend.

A $22 million Friday matches the opening day performance of its predecessor, 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes, putting it on pace to hit the $52-$56 million mark in its opening frame. War for the Planet of the Apes opened to $56 million in its July 2017 domestic roll-out. The film went on to gross $146M domestically and $490M worldwide.

The rest of the top three is tracking along our expectations, with Universal’s The Fall Guy on pace to a $14-$16M weekend in its second frame and Amazon MGM’s Challenger’s on pace to hit $5M over its third week.

Check back in on Sunday for our full report of the weekend box office.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios.