The Viola Davis femme African warrior epic The Woman King —a flashback to the types of historical epics Columbia Pictures has had a long history of notching Oscars with– is looking at a $12M opening per Sony this weekend, while rivals have it in the $13M-$16M range.While adults made their way back to the box office this summer, giving movies like Top Gun: Maverick a $700M-plus stash and putting Elvis at $150.3M stateside, the question remains how they’ll come out a time when there’s very little on the marquee.
The hope is that this Gina Prince-Bythewood feature about the Agojie, a unit of powerful female warriors in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, will leg out and find crossover audiences especially as awards season kicks in; women over 25 and African American audiences poised to buy tickets.
Coming off its TIFF world premiere on Friday, Woman King is already at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes off 46 reviews.Previews start Thursday at 3PM in 3,200 locations, expanding to 3,700 venues by Friday.
Woman King will have the benefit of Imax and PLF screens. eOne co-financed the $50M TriStar Pictures release which was steered by the label’s production boss Nicole Brown.
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