It’s looking like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will end its three-day weekend around $70 million or so after bringing in $27.7 million on Friday, which includes the $4.1 million from late Thursday night screenings. While not as high as the possible $80 million the film was looking as if it might be able to achieve thanks to those Thursday numbers, we’re still talking about an impressive opening for a film that isn’t targeting IMAX theaters the way blockbusters have of late.
The film does, however, carry a hefty $170 million budget, nearly double that of 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes which opened to $54.8 million three years ago. Domestic numbers for this film, however, aren’t the chief focus, it will be overseas where our attention will be drawn as Rise managed $176.7 million domestically and another $305 million internationally. Look for Dawn to do much better, as much as $200 million domestically and another $400 million internationally at the very least I’d say.
We’ll talk more tomorrow morning when we’ll also have numbers from Boyhood‘s limited New York and Los Angeles release, which I expect to be quite big.
