EXCLUSIVE: Disney‘s Snow White, which has been dragged through the tabloids like she was Leona Helmsley, is seeing Thursday previews tonight of $3.5M per our sources. Note, these numbers don’t come from Disney. Showtimes began at 2PM.
Where’s does this put the feature take of Disney’s original princess? At that level the Marc Webb-directed movie is above the $2.3M previews of 2019’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (18% of a $12.5M Friday for a 3-day of $36.9M) and it’s above the $2.6M that Dumbo did on its Thursday (17% of a $15.2M Friday for a 3-day of $46M) and it’s not that far from Kung Fu Panda 4 last year which did $3.8M in Thursday previews for a $19.4M Friday and $57.8M 3-day. Everything boils down to whether families with daughters go on Saturday and Sunday. It’s spring break and there’s 25% K-12 schools off tomorrow, and that percentage will generally hold for the next few weeks.
Snow White carries a high level of awareness at 94%, meaning audiences know it’s out there. However, the the level of interest on tracking is low at 39%, making many industry suits wonder if a movie at that level has ever opened to north of $50M+. The big question: Do families ignore all the noise that the pic’s star Rachel Zegler created and decide to go see what is a very well-produced Disney live action take of a classic tune. Get with the picture: Snow White isn’t some zany Stephen Sondheim-esque swing ala Joker 2 nor is it the crazy WTF 1981 Andy Kaufman-Bernadette Peters robot movie bomb Heartbeeps. This is a very well-produced musical from Wicked producer Marc Platt, with songs by Oscar winners Pasek and Paul, Barbie‘s Greta Gerwig at one point polished the screenplay, and Webb is the sublime romantic comedy director of 500 Days of Summer. Snow White wasn’t made by five-year olds, nor is it waving any political flag agenda. In fact, 2016’s Zootopia had a more overt political message going for it, and that was released at a time leading into the first Donald Trump presidency. As one marketing studio czar said to me today, “Why wouldn’t any family want to see Snow White?”
Critical score for Snow White on Rotten Tomatoes is low at 46%. But so was Maleficent (54% Rotten, $69.4M 3-day), Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (40% Rotten), and Aladdin (57% Rotten, $91.5M), and reviews didn’t prevent those movies from doing stateside business. All of those movies received A CinemaScores, so we’ll see where Snow White settles.
Snow White will be booked at 4,200 theaters with all the wish fulfillment of PLFs, 4DX, Screen-X, Dolby and Imax tickets.
Also opening this weekend wide is Warner Bros.’ Barry Levinson-directed, Robert De Niro starring gangster movie Alto Knights. The movie has 38% Rotten Tomatoes critics score. We’re hearing previews are less than half million. The movie is expected to do low to mid single digits aimed at old men. Who doesn’t want to be Snow White tonight?
Also wide this week is RLJE/Shudder’s Flying Lotus directed sci-fi horror movie Ash starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul at 1,136 theaters. The pic is 74% fresh with RT Critics.
