While the world waits to see the Seattle Seahawks square off against the New England Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday, Hollywood hopes people aren’t too busy to contribute to the box office. For what is a fun success story of the little indie that could, Markiplier’s feature video game adaptation, Iron Lung, is breathing life into the box office with $1.4 million against Send Help‘s $1.3 million.
In addition to earning slightly more money on the box office chart, Iron Lung is putting more butts in seats with 1.9 million admissions for the week, and 1.3 admissions for the weekend against Send Help‘s 1.7 admissions and 1.2 admissions.
More K-pop comes to theaters
Elsewhere, indie films are making up the rest of the box office, including Bleecker Street’s K-pop concert movie Stray Kids: The sominATE Experience, which grossed $900K from 351 IMAX screenings. While the Stray Kids event film does not yet have a critics’ score, fans are flocking to Rotten Tomatoes to celebrate its release, giving it a 100% Fresh score. Raimi’s Send Help should send out an S.O.S. for $8.6M over the weekend, but if positive word-of-mouth holds, fans could show up for Stray Kids, taking a bite out of Send Help‘s box office total.
Solo Mio gives audiences the option of a delightful rom-com
Meanwhile, Angel Studios’ Solo Mio, starring Kevin James as a reluctant bachelor after getting left at the altar in Italy, had a decent Thursday with $744K at 2,406 locations. The delightful rom-com could make as much as $5 million for the weekend at 3,052 theaters. While the film has a 77% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, we gave the film a 7/10 in our review. We also interviewed the directors and cast, a pleasant conversation that took us to Italy for a lively discussion about the film’s production.
The Strangers: Chapter 3 and Dracula stumble out of the gate
Finally, The Strangers: Chapter 3 grossed $450K, while Luc Besson’s Dracula earned the same amount. Renny Harlin’s latest Strangers sequel hopes to pull $5 million, while Dracula‘s box office fate remains uncertain.
What are you up to this weekend? Do you have Super Bowl plans? Will you sneak off to the movies before the game gets started? We’ve got a massive snowstorm coming to our area here in Canada, so I’ll be staying in and binge-watching Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece. If the weather calms down, I’ll likely head to a friend’s house to watch the game. Let us know what you’re up to in the comments section below.
