There’s always been a demand for horror in the New Year, and Universal, Blumhouse and Atomic Monster are meeting that this weekend with Night Swim which made $1.45M in previews at 2,750 theaters from showtimes that began at 5PM. The PG-13 movie isn’t expected to be M3GAN, the early PG-13 horror doll hit from last year, which overindexed to $30.4M in a hefty Avatar 2 marketplace, to a $95M-plus domestic take. Warner Bros’ Wonka in its fourth weekend is expected to prevail, down 40%, with a take in the teens.
Interestingly enough Night Swim‘s previews are spot-on the same as M. Night Shyamalan’s R-rated Knock at the Cabin from late February 2023 which went on to post a $5.4M opening day and $14.1M opening. Reviews are awful for Night Swim with a Rotten Tomatoes critical score of 27%. Knock at the Cabin had better reviews at 67% fresh.
Night Swim, directed and adapted by Bryce McGuire, is based on the 2014 short film and stars Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement by a degenerative illness, who moves into a new home with his concerned wife Eve (Oscar nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, this fall’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead).
Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror.
McGuire’s screenplay is from a screen story he wrote with Rod Blackhurst.
Wonka led Thursday with $2.7M at 4,051 theaters, -14% from Wednesday, for a third week of $39.5M, and a running total of $150.2M. Until Dune: Part Two arrives, Wonka is Timothee Chalamet’s highest grossing movie as a solo star stateside, ahead of Dune‘s $108M.
Illumination/Universal’s Migration at 3,839 theaters was second yesterday with $2.09M, -17%, for a $30.4M second weekend, and total of $67.6M — note that’s higher than the running total of Disney’s Wish ($61.8M) which ended its sixth week.
Third goes to Sony’s Anyone But You with a second Thursday of $1.98M, -8%, and a second week of $18M, and running total of $34.1M.
Fourth on Thursday is Warner Bros/DC’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, at 3,787 and day’s take of $1.9M, -15%, $31.2M second weekend and running total of $89.4M. That’s 5% behind The Flash‘s at end of its second week, that DC bomb finaling at $108.1M domestic.
Fifth yesterday at 2,557 theaters was Amazon MGM’s The Boys in the Boat with $1M, -8%, and a running total of $27.8M since Christmas.
Sixth is Warner Bros.’ The Color Purple at 3,203 theaters, a Thursday of $820K, -10%, and a running total since Christmas Day of $49.8M.
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