Paramount‘s prequel A Quiet Place: Day One made a loud entrance at the domestic box office with a franchise-best $6.8 million in Thursday previews.
That’s an impressive start, considering this is the first entry not directed by franchise creator John Krasinski or starring Emily Blunt (Krasinski starred in the first one as well).
Instead, Michael Sarnoski (Pig) directed Day One, based on a story he and Krasinski came up with together. Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn star in the sci-fi horror-thriller. The movie cost $70 million to produce before marketing.
Heading into the weekend, tracking suggested the third installment will open to $40 million-plus. There’s plenty of room for upside, based on strong reviews and audience scores, and considering that the June box office has been in major rebound mode since Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Inside Out 2 came along earlier in the month.
Among other 2024 summer films, the preview number came in higher than the $6.6 million earned in previews by The Kingdom of the Apes, which opened to $58 million, and the $5.7 million for Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which debuted to $56.5 million.
A Quiet Place, earning $4.3 million in previews, was a sleeper hit at the 2018 box office upon opening to $50 million despite virtually no dialogue. A Quiet Place: Part II, hitting theaters over Memorial Day in 2022 as the box office was still in recovery mode from the pandemic, posted a four-day holiday gross of $57 million, including $47 million for the three-day weekend. The sequel grossed $4.8 million in previews.
The outlook for Kevin Costner’s pricey $100 million Western, Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter One is murkier. The film failed to crack $1 million in previews, instead reporting $800,000 in ticket sales. At the same time, older moviegoers — the movie’s target demo — don’t tend to rush out to see a film.
Horizon is without a doubt the biggest curiosity factor of the weekend considering Costner left behind a lucrative gig on Taylor Sheridan’s hit show Yellowstone and put up tens of millions of his own money to make his decades-long passion project a reality with four period Western movies.
Costner’s film is tracking to open in the $10 million to $12 million range, a worrisome start for a three-hour movie costing $100 million to produce. Many box office pundits believe the movie will over perform in America’s heartland and come in higher.
Warners agreed to distribute and market the movie for a fee in the U.S. Costner — who has tirelessly promoted the movie — invested $38 million of his own money, while two mystery investors also ponied up equity. The rest of the budget came from selling off foreign rights with the help of sales outfit K5 International, which premiered the film at the Cannes Film Festival. (Horizon opens in numerous markets this weekend).
Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter Two opens in short order on Aug. 16 in one of the more unusual distribution schemes in Hollywood history. Costner also put up most of the marketing money for Horizon.
Not even Quiet Place: Day One appears to have a shot at stealing the box office crown from Pixar and Disney’s Inside Out 2, which is preparing to become the first film since Barbie nearly a year ago to join the billion-dollar club at the global box office. It is expected to achieve the feat on Sunday or Monday as it wraps up its third weekend, reaching the mark faster than any animated film in history.
Frozen II, from Pixar’s sister division Walt Disney Animation Studios, is the top-grossing animated film of time at $1.45 billion globally. The last animated film to cross $1 billion was Illumination and Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023, while the last Pixar title to do so was Incredibles 2 in 2019.
June 28, 8:25 a.m.: Updated with Horizon preview grosses.
