'Alita' Battles Her Way To $41M+ 5-Day, But Remains Far From Heaven At The B.O.
When a studio or a filmmaker builds a movie for north of $170M, the expectation is to soar to the greatest heights at the box office, and a passion project in the hands of James Cameron as producer — what studio wouldn't double down on that, especially in an era starving for fresh franchises?
His Alita: Battle Angel, directed by Robert Rodriguez, is easily winning the Presidents Day box office, with a $27.8M 3-day and $33M 4-day and a revised 5-day of $41.7M. Overseas stands at $94.3M from 86 markets which includes last week's $36M plus another $56.1M made this weekend in all territories (including previews) except for Japan and China. This will put Alita's WW at $136M by tomorrow. But the pic, despite beating its domestic tracking and an $11.6M Saturday, +55% over Friday, is still a long way from any kind of profitability. Imax contributed $6.5M at 404 screens stateside or 16% of the pic's overall gross. Some rival B.O. analysts believe that her domestic result at this 5-day level has a shot of hitting $80M, maybe $100M.
Fox contends breakeven is between $350M-$400M, while other finance film sources with knowledge of the budget say it's significantly more. A $50M domestic start over 5 days would be considered at the very least respectable for a movie this size. We understand Alita's price tag was originally $200M, and shaved down to $170M between New Zealand and Texas tax credits.
Who has turned out to Alita to date? In updated PostTrak, M25+ at 34% are the biggest quad, giving the pic its best grade at 84%. This is followed by men under 25 at 26% (with a 71% grade), then females under 25 (21% with a 73% grade), and females over 25 (19% turnout, 78% positive score). Overall, a healthy 59% recommend. Those between 13-17 made up 8% of Alita's ticket buyers, giving it an 81% score. Among kids under 12, Boys 10-12 were the biggest demo at 37% followed by Girls 10-12 (23%). But girls loved the movie more at 100% versus boy's 77%.
The Burbank lot can savor third place as well with New Line's Isn't It Romantic, which has $14.2M over FSS, $16.5M over FSSM, and $22.7M over 6 days. That's slightly above Rebel Wilson's previous New Line romantic comedy, How to Be Single, which made $22.4M over the same period of time. It's OK for a film that cost $31M before P&A. How to Be Single ended its run at $46.8M domestic, $112.3M WW (it also had Fifty Shades of Grey's Dakota Johnson in it). Friday's business of $4.1M dipped 5% from Valentine's Day. Three-and-a-half stars on PostTrak, 50% definite recommend, and female heavy at 71%, who graded it 81% positive. Relish Mix says that the mix of stars in the pic –Priyanka Chopra, Liam Hemsworth, Wilson and Lucifer's Tom Ellis– are getting shout-outs on social, with Chopra the social media magnet here with her 100M followers across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The pic counts a massive social media universe for a romantic comedy at 255M, well above the genre's 125M universe of YouTube views, FB, Twitter and Instagram followers.
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