The Woman King, from TriStar, reached $19.05M, staying within the range of its Sunday AM estimate. It’s another another excellent illustration of how Sony successfully attracts adult audiences with non-tentpole material. Before the pandemic, the Sony label released a summer sleeper in Where the Crawdads Sing, which opened to $17.2M and is still playing with a current domestic gross of $88.9M and a worldwide gross of $127M. TriStar released Little Women in December 2019 with a 3-day gross of $16.7M and a leg out to $108.1M.
Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, and John Boyega star in The Woman King, a (mostly true) narrative about the Agojie, an all-female guard who protected the king and defended the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. The film has received mainly positive reviews, with a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% fresh and 7.7/10. The film, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Dana Stevens from a tale by Stevens and Maria Bello, premiered last week at the Toronto Film Festival to positive reviews and under-the-radar Oscar buzz. It’s not overtly positioned as an Oscar contender (it’s an action film first and foremost), but a strong start might put it in the running.
Additionally, TriStar held screenings of #IAMWOMANKING in well-known cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York. A multimarket screening event was held, and important journalists and influencers were invited. Additionally, HBCU students and alumni as well as the Divine Nine Fraternal Organizations participated in a screening programme that included six markets: Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Charlotte, Chicago, and Los Angeles. To further promote the Gina Prince-Bythewood directed film, Sony collaborated on a national buyout campaign with the national Organization Delta sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and teamed up with the digital portal Watch The Yard.
Box office analysts predict that Woman King will have a long run, at least a 3x multiple reaching $60M. 20th Century Studios/Barbarian Disney’s came in at $6.5M, -38% for a $21.1M domestic ten-day gross among the final numbers. A24’s Pearl debuted ahead of Searchlight’s See How They Run by by $3.1 million to $3 million.
Sun. morning Writethru following Saturday morning’s update: The Woman King, produced by TriStar/eOne, defied expectations with a $19M opening thanks to buzz generated by its A+ CinemaScore and a staggering 95% favourable PostTrak rating. With $1.7M in previews, Friday brought in $6.8M, and Saturday brought in $7.15M.
Women make up 60% of the crowd at Woman King, with 58% over 35 and 39% over 45, another encouraging indicator for an older demographic that was hesitant to venture out during the peak of the pandemic. Black moviegoers made up 59% of the audience, while Caucasians made up 19%, Latino and Hispanics made up 12%, and Asian/others made up 10%. The Woman King did best in the East and South, where seven of the top ten runs originated. AMC Burbank and the Grove in Los Angeles were both listed in the top 10, as was the Country Club in Chicago. At current time, PLF screens and Imax auditoriums account for 34% of Woman King’s weekend ticket sales. The weekend gross for Imax Woman King prints at 235 was $950K. The best markets were New York, Atlanta, Washington, DC, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Orlando, Detroit, and Tampa.