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The Michael Jackson biopic is closing in on $300 million domestic, and a horror film from a YouTube star just had one of the better opening weekends of the year.
Lionsgate’s Michael is holding the top spot at the domestic box office for a fourth straight weekend, with industry estimates putting its weekend gross at $27 million on a Friday of roughly $7 million across 3,560 theaters. That drop of about 29% is solid by biopic standards. The film’s running domestic total is now tracking toward $283.6 million, which would push it past Lionsgate’s own Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 as the studio’s highest-grossing domestic release in the post-2015 era.
For context, Deadline’s tracking shows Michael running about 7% ahead of Oppenheimer at the same point in its theatrical run. Christopher Nolan’s film finished at $330 million domestically, which gives a rough sense of where the Michael Jackson biopic’s ceiling might be.
The Devil Wears Prada 2, from 20th Century Studios and Disney, is sitting in second place with an estimated $20 million third weekend across 3,830 theaters. Its running cume is approaching $178 million. The film is holding reasonably well but losing ground to Michael’s sustained dominance.
The bigger story of the weekend is Obsession, the horror film from YouTube personality Curry Barker, which opened to an estimated $14 million at 2,615 sites for Focus Features. That is well above the $8 to $9 million that analysts had projected. It earned an A- CinemaScore, the best of any wide release this weekend, with a 70% definite recommend score among audiences. The under-25 crowd turned out at 39%, and premium large format screens are accounting for about a quarter of the film’s ticket sales.
Barker follows a path that is becoming familiar in horror. Jordan Peele came from comedy, Zach Cregger from sketch television, and the Philippou brothers from YouTube prank videos before making Talk to Me. Barker’s film, acquired by Focus Features out of the Toronto International Film Festival last year, drew strong reviews for its premise involving a cursed antique toy that grants a shy man’s wish for a woman to love him, then reveals what an unhinged wish that actually is.
Obsession’s opening puts it within $3.8 million of Iron Lung, the Markiplier-directed horror film that opened to $17.8 million earlier this year. That comparison matters: the audience for digital-native horror is proving to be real, and consistent, and willing to show up on opening weekend.
