‘It Ends With Us’ Opens Strong, ‘Borderlands’ Bombing

The August box office is looking Lively with Sony’s drama “It Ends With Us” scoring a spectacular opening day of $24 million from 3,611 locations across Friday and preview screenings. The adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestselling novel is now looking at even higher projections north of $45 million across the three-day frame — a fantastic start for a drama with a mere $25 million production budget, well below the spend of the typical studio summer tentpole.

The popularity of Hoover’s novel on TikTok and marketing’s slant toward female audiences led many analysts to believe that “It Ends With Us” could come in well above earlier tracking. The film now seems primed for a second place opening through the weekend, coming in close to the third outing Marvel’s mega-hit “Deadpool & Wolverine,” starring Blake Lively‘s spouse Ryan Reynolds. “It Ends With Us” was the top grosser on its opening day, even subtracting its $7 million from previews. Its $17 million Friday comes in above “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

The Justin Baldoni-directed feature stars Lively as a florist that falls for a neurosurgeon (also Baldoni) who is then forced to face harsh realities when the arrival of a childhood friend (Brandon Sklenar) complicates her relationship. Driven by enthusiasm for Hoover’s novel and enthusiasm among early moviegoers (audience survey firm Cinema Score turned in an A- grade), the film has begun to play like a franchise installment among its summer blockbuster peers.

Proving less successful at that is “Borderlands,” Lionsgate’s long-gestating adaptation of Take-Two’s shoot-em-and-loot-em video game series. The feature took in a meager $4 million from 3,125 locations, even with increased ticket sales from play in Imax and other premium large-format auditoriums. The sci-fi comedy is in serious danger of opening below $10 million — a terrible result considering its production budget of $115 million. It could be even be below director Eli Roth’s last feature, the modestly budgeted slasher “Thanksgiving,” which got to eight-digits in its debut last fall.

The writing has been on the wall for a while now with “Borderlands.” Now opening more than three and a half years after principal photography kicked off, the would-be franchise-starter has earned the worst critical response of any wide release this summer. Even franchise fans that prioritized seeing the feature as soon as possible are calling it a turkey (a terrible D+ grade on Cinema Score).

Lionsgate has financially shielded itself a bit by recouping nearly 60% of production costs via international presales. Even so, the very bad buzz for “Borderlands,” which stars names as varied as Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt and Jamie Lee Curtis, would indicate that the ensemble actioner is shaping up to be a considerable failure theatrically.

Meanwhile, Disney’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” is shaping up for another fantastic hold in its third weekend. The Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman two-hander took in $15.6 million on Friday, down just 44% from its daily total a week ago. The R-rated action-comedy has shown much more staying power than the typical superhero feature, which usually put up more front-loaded performances and face steep week-to-week drops at the box office. The Marvel Studios production is primed to cross $500 million domestically shortly after the weekend. The $1 billion global milestone is coming up quickly too; it’ll be one of 54 features to ever cross that threshold.

Universal rounds out the top five with its releases of “Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4.” Amblin’s disaster thriller continues to put up impressive holds in North America (though its Warner Bros. release internationally has failed to match stateside momentum). “Twisters” earned $4.4 million on Friday and is projecting a slim 32% fall in its fourth weekend of release — the second sub-35% tumble in a row for the Lee Isaac Chung-directed feature. The movie surpassed $200 million in North America earlier this week and now ranks as one of the top five domestic grossers of the year so far.

Meanwhile, “Despicable Me 4” is looking to add $8.75 million this weekend, which would mark just a 24% drop. After opening in early July, the Illumination sequel is getting a long tail with family audiences through the end of the summer season. Now at $330 million, it ranks as the third-highest-grossing North American release of the year.

Outside the top five, Neon’s indie horror feature “Cuckoo” took in roughly $1.34 million from 1,503 locations on its opening day. The psychological thriller stars “Euphoria” breakout Hunter Schafer.