However, many expected this well-received movie to come at the top of expectations.
It did not with a $7.5M opening.
Also, the misfiring of A CinemaScore, mid-budget movies at the box office is becoming a trend.
At $7.5M, no bow wow for Mark Wahlberg’s ‘Arthur the King’.Lionsgate
Thats why people didnt show up?
Yeah, but thats not 100% of the reason.
Wahlbergs action title,The Family Plan,was AppleTV+s most-watched movie ever, reportedly.
Beefcake and pups do sell: ‘Dog’ opened to near $15M.MGM/UAR
Hollywood stars should get tattoos of that.
This despite various genres (i.e.
A definite bow-wow post-pandemic in 2022, at a time when audiences were slowly coming back to cinemas.
Lionsgate in trailers clearly sold it on the big screen of that.
Why didArthur the Kingfall apart?
Thats a very low threshold for them, a feasible one to cash cow off of.
It didnt get the typical Saturday matinee family bump.
Together, they did business.
Also missing fromArthur the Kings grosses is Canada.
West and South were the best regions for Arthur the King.
However, Northeast was weak, and Im told thats because spring break wasnt in full force there.
Interestingly enough, Harkins theaters and Phoenix overperformed wildly on Arthur the King.
In addition, the circuit over-indexes on dog-themed and Wahlberg films.
They boasted a nearly 3% share on TatumsDog.
The real cost of the movie before presales, Im told, was $40M.
That was too big a price of a movie for this conceit.
eOne presales forArthur the Kingwere $18M.
Domestic was shopped around after Paramount dropped the project.
Tooley previously had a deal with eOne.
That is, if Lionsgate chose to lean into faith-based and family.
Lionsgate recently underdelivered on another A+ movie,Ordinary Angels,which opened to $6.1M.
Weve seen their Kingdom Story fare do much better with the faith-based.
Or is the audience for smaller movies, outside of horror, never returning?
