Hey you, it’s January!
Usually, the start of the year is when studios dump movies that have no chance of competition or big money success. There’s an overlap of the big holiday releases still bringing in audiences and movie goers are generally perceived as having a “holiday hangover” to go to new movies. Our Chris Bumbray predicted that James Cameron’s first trilogy entry, Avatar: Fire and Ash, will naturally hold firm at number one, while there will be more of a battle for second place with the horror film Primate and the post-apocalyptic survival film Greenland 2: Migration.
Early Weekend Totals
According to Deadline, Primate is leading the early Thursday previews with $1.4 million from yesterday’s take coupled with additional early previews. This barely nudges the film above Greenland 2, which fell short of one million with $900k in early Thursday totals. Avatar is projected to continue its reign at the box office and it’s now being reported that the newest Pandora adventure has earned $321.2 million at the worldwide box office in its third week. Also of note for Greenland 2: the film is not opening theatrically in Canada, which is often a red flag for box-office performance. Based on past trends, movies that skip Canada typically struggle to exceed $8–9 million domestically. Because of this, there’s a strong chance that holdovers like Zootopia 2 or even The Housemaid could leapfrog over it. It wouldn’t be shocking if Marty Supreme also outperformed expectations.
How are Primate and Greenland 2 stacking up with critics?
Primate currently holds a 77% aggregate critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score yet to be reported. Mike Holtz reviewed the film for us and gave it a pretty glowing reaction, saying, “Yeah, this is a killer chimp movie with some dumb laughs, Terrifier 2-level kills (it doesn’t go quite THAT far, but it’s in the neighborhood), and is a lot better than should be expected for a dump month such as January. But Primate seems to know all that, embrace it, and deliver an insanely entertaining horror movie.”
Meanwhile, Greenland 2 isn’t faring as well with a 59% currently on Rotten Tomatoes and our Tyler Nichols was entertained enough with his lukewarm review, saying, “I enjoyed my time with Greenland 2 despite its flaws as it featured a story that was able to keep the momentum going without adding unnecessary obstacles that are only there to distract. While some more layered characters would have helped to invest heavier in their journey, everything is done so well with the action that it doesn’t hamper it too much. I wish they didn’t include some really cheesy narrations to bookend the film, as it does leave the film on a corny note, but subtlety is more and more of a lost art-form.”
