The movie 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' from Disney's 20th Century is helping bring in more money to the box office after a quiet period, earning $22 million on its first day in 4,075 theaters. It's now expected to make $55 million over the opening weekend.
This earning is at the high end of what was expected before the movie came out, and just a bit lower than the $56.2 million debut of 'War for the Planet of the Apes' in 2017. 'Kingdom' is the fourth part of the 'Apes' franchise restarted with 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' in 2011 and is the first one released after Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2019.
The movie 'Kingdom' presents itself as the start of a new trilogy in the story set many years after the previous one, and Disney is hoping it will become another successful series in their collection of movies. The reception for the film was mostly positive on Rotten Tomatoes, with 80% from critics and the audience.
However, there is a problem for 'Kingdom' with its CinemaScore grade. While the previous three reboot movies in the 'Apes' series got an A- from audiences, 'Kingdom' only got a B. In the post-COVID market, big-budget movies that haven't earned an A- or higher on CinemaScore have seen their sales go down a lot in later weeks, except for a few exceptions like 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' from last winter.
'Kingdom' won't face a lot of competition from other movies for general audiences next weekend, except for 'Back to Black', a biopic about Amy Winehouse from Focus. But this might cause problems for 'Kingdom' on Memorial Day weekend when 'Furiosa' from Warner Bros. comes out.
Meanwhile, 'The Fall Guy' from Universal/87North is still hoping for a long time at the box office to make up for its not-so-great start. After good feedback from audiences but a weak $28 million opening weekend, the action romcom directed by David Leitch only dropped 48% in its second weekend to $14.4 million.
'The Fall Guy' is now expected to have made around $50 million in the US in 10 days, but it still needs a lot more to make a profit compared to its reported budget of over $125 million before paying for marketing.
The sports drama 'Challengers' from Amazon MGM is also hoping to make enough money in theaters, making $5 million in its third weekend, bringing the total in the US to $38.4 million out of the $55 million budget.
