Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s Wuthering Heights easily seduced Valentine’s Day moviegoers, winning Saturday in North America with $14.4 million as it prepares to win the long Presidents Day/Valentine’s Day weekend with an estimated $40 million domestically and another $40 overseas for a global launch of $80 million.
However, filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s decidedly unconventional literary adaptation of Emily Brontë’s iconic novel is at risk of coming in behind expectations at the domestic box office and not hitting the $40 million mark. Tracking services expected the movie to earn as much as $50 million stateside as Robbie — also a prolific producer — returns to the big screen in her first studio leading role since Warner Bros.’ blockbuster Barbie.
Some box office pundits show the female-skewing film coming in between $33 million and $35 million after not-so-great reviews, a B CinemaScore and solid, but not spectacular, exit polls conducted by PostTrak.
Also, Sony Animation’s family film GOAT is over-performing, while Amazon MGM Studio’s Crime 101 is coming in on the higher end of expectations; the big caveat is the $90 million Amazon paid for the project (presumably, it will bring Prime Video streaming subs). And GOAT, which grossed $11.4 million on Valentine’s Day, could end up nipping at Wuthering Heights’ heels domestically, with Sony now predicting a four-day launch of $32 million. That would mark the biggest start for an original animated studio pic since Elemental, not adjusted for inflation.
But never underestimate the instincts of Warners chiefs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, who have pulled a rabbit out of the hat more than once in tapping a director who comes more from the auteur side of the aisle (Fennell previously directed Saltburn and A Promising Young Woman), or betting on an original film that others may deem too risky theatrically. Look no further than their current Oscar frontrunner, One Battle After Another, from Paul Thomas Anderson; Warners is also home to Ryan Coogler’s fellow Oscar frontrunner Sinners, an original story many questioned before it both succeeded at the box office and picked up the most Academy Award noms ever for an individual film.
While the most obvious go-to target audience for Wuthering Heights is older females, the studio’s marketing team also worked hard to seduce Gen Zers and younger Millennials, as reflected by much of the ad campaign. Their efforts paid off. Now the trick will be to get even older females to show up as well. Throughout much of the weekend, 53 percent of all ticket buyers were between ages 18 and 34, yet the R-rated film was slapped with a B CinemaScore by a demo group the filmmakers assumed would be more sympathetic.
Reviewers are also divided, which prompted a rash of stories last week as the film’s Rotten Tomatoes critics score began dropping (it currently rests at 63 percent), while the audience ranking on Rotten Tomatoes is 84 percent for Fennell’s reinterpretation of the 1847 Brit-lit classic about obsessive love, possession and doomed passion on the West Yorkshire moors as the worlds of the brooding Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw collide.
Warners and partner MRC paid $80 million to pick up global rights to the project, reportedly beating out a far larger offer of $150 million from Netflix.
GOAT was the only new film to earn an A CinemaScore, along with near-perfect PostTrak exit scores, in nod to the team at Sony Animation, home to both the Spider-Verse movies and cultural sensation Kpop Demon Hunters.
Inspired by a tale from Curry’s childhood, the original family pic follows Will, a small goat with big dreams (Caleb McLaughlin), who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball — a high —intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Will’s new teammates aren’t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but Will is determined to revolutionize the sport and prove once and for all that “smalls can ball.”
While Wuthering Heights is popping among younger women, Crime 101 is getting a larger share of older females, which Warners is also targeting. Translated: the heist pic was a popular Valentine’s Day date-night choice for the 55 and older age set. Director Bart Layton’s ensemble crime noir pic is looking at a third-place finish with $17.8 million.
Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Mark Ruffalo star in the pricey movie, which is based on author Don Winslow’s novella of the same name that follows detective Lou Lubesnick as he attempts to solve a string of multimillion-dollar jewel heists by tracking the perpetrator who follows a strict set of rules known as “Crime 101.” As the fates of the various characters converge, the line between hunter and hunted blurs.
Working Title produced Crime 101 alongside The Story Factory, RAW and Wild State. Amazon MGM paid $90 million-plus for rights to the project.
The film’s current Rotten Tomatoes score is a steady 86 percent, compared to Wuthering Heights‘ 63 percent and 79 percent for GOAT. (THR‘s review of Crime 101 is more skeptical than the others.)
Because of the four-day weekend, numbers could easily shift.
More to come.
