Baahubali 2 Reviews and Box Office Report - Page 11

The calm before the storm began last night, as the two wide/semi-wide releases both did the now standard Thursday evening preview screening thing. Eugenio Derbez's How to Be A Latin Lover earned a promising $450,000 in 925 theaters before opening in 1,118 theaters today. The film, about a guy who once made a living seducing rich older women who moves in with his sister after getting dumped 25 years after marrying one of his would-be targets, also stars Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell and Raquel Welch. It comes from Pantelion (via Lionsgate) which scored big with Derbez in 2013's Instructions Not Included.

That Spanish-language family comedy snagged an $7.8 million debut weekend on just 348 screens in August of 2013 for an eventual $44.4m domestic total. That made it the third-biggest foreign language grosser ever behind Hero ($53m), Life is Beautiful ($57m) and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ($128m). It earned $99m worldwide. So, yeah, it will be very interesting to see how this one plays out this weekend. It could frontload and end up with $6m or it could flirt with a $10m debut weekend. Either way, this wasn't an expensive picture.

The only outright wide release this weekend was The Circle, a James Ponsoldt-directed adaptation of Dave Eggers's novel about the perils of social media. The Emma Watson/Tom Hanks/John Boyega/Karren Gillan thriller earned $430,000 last night. If the EuropaCorp release (distributed via STX Entertainment) plays like a conventional adult-skewing release, we're looking at around $9-$14 million for the weekend, which is obviously a lot of wiggle room although conventional wisdom points towards and over/under $12m debut. The film premiered at The Tribecca Film Festival to mostly negative reviews but was otherwise hidden from press. I'm seeing it tonight so I'll share any deep thoughts in tomorrow morning's box office update.

Sadly, BH Tilt is only releasing Sleight into 564 theaters this weekend. J.D. Dillard's picture is a pretty engaging, albeit mostly low-key, crime drama about an orphaned young man who performs street magic and low-level drug running in order to support his sister. Jacob Latimore is quite good while Dule Hill is intriguingly cast against type as a vicious drug dealer. BH Tilt usually releases their horror movies (which this is not) into around 1,500 theaters, but this one is going into about 1/3 of that. At this juncture, a $2 million debut would be a relative success.

But the big winner last night was Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. The follow-up to the 2015 hit Baahubali: The Beginning (around $100 million worldwide) earned at least $2.5 million (as of this writing) on just 330 screens. The film will play in 450 theaters this weekend, including a number of IMAX and PLF screens. The 2015 picture earned $3.575m on 236 screens for what turned out to be a $6.7m domestic total. This one could very well end up in the top-five this weekend, which means you'll be hearing more about it. I really do need to start sampling a few of these pictures, as there is at least one somewhat local multiplex that tends to play them.