’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Sinks to $15 Million Opening On Sluggish MLK Weekend
Sony/Columbia’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is getting rave reviews from critics and fans, but is facing a weak estimated 4-day opening weekend of $15 million that is putting it in in the No. 2 spot on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend against the fifth frame of 20th Century/Lightstorm’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which industry estimates have earning $17 million this weekend.
Pre-release projections had the sequel to last summer’s “28 Years Later” earning $20 million over four days. Instead, after the film made $5.6 million from 3,506 theaters on opening day, “The Bone Temple” is pacing for a launch on par with the $15.2 million opening of the critically panned horror film “The Bye Bye Man” on MLK Weekend 2017.
The one bit of hope for Sony is that reception for “The Bone Temple” is even stronger than “28 Years Later” with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 94% critics and 90% audience along with an A- on CinemaScore, a grade that is rare for horror films and well above the B that its predecessor earned.
However, it is possible that such high initial marks for “The Bone Temple” are because the opening night crowd for this film is highly concentrated among hardcore fans of Danny Boyle’s zombie series who enjoyed “28 Years Later” while those who didn’t like that film are staying home.
Some reviews among horror site critics who didn’t like the first film praise this sequel for giving them what they hoped for out of the last installment, so perhaps the word of mouth could convince those previously disappointed to give the series a second chance. But that will be key to “Bone Temple” getting anywhere close to the legs it needs to turn a theatrical profit against a $63 million budget.
More to come…
The post ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Sinks to $15 Million Opening On Sluggish MLK Weekend appeared first on TheWrap.