Brent Lang Executive Editor “Barbie” and “Gran Turismo” are both claiming victory at the box office in a showdown that has a lot to do with movie accounting and shifting definitions of the meaning of an opening weekend.
Warner Bros., which backed “Barbie,” is claiming that the film won the weekend for the fifth time, earning $15.1 million over last Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
However, Sony, which produced “Gran Turismo,” is claiming that its film topped box office charts with $17.4 million. At issue, is the fact that “Gran Turismo’s” opening figure includes both the $1.4 million it earned in Thursday previews and the $3.9 million it generated in weeks of special pre-show screenings.
Studios routinely fold Thursday preview grosses into their opening weekend results — Warner Bros. doesn’t dispute that. However, Sony does seem to be applying a pretty liberal idea of what constitutes an opening weekend by including its weeks of other screenings.
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