> Sony Crunchyroll Anime Rules Box Office Again With ‘Chainsaw Man’ Powering To $17M+ Opening, ‘Springsteen’ Bombs With $9M+. NOBODY LIKES SPRINGSTEEN.

SUNDAY AM: Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc is landing at the high end of where we were seeing it yesterday with $17.2M after a $5.2M million Saturday in a weekend where the Toronto Blue Jays and LA Dodgers were a complete distraction in the World Series, now with 1-1 tied streak. Running global cume on this anime movie is $108 million (40% of that coming from a September Japan release).

Sony and Crunchyroll know how to speak to their followers directly. They kicked off the campaign at Anime Expo Los Angeles in July which included a MAPPA panel (they produced the movie) and activations on the expo floor with MAPPA and Crunchyroll booths and Pochita walkabout and photo ops. Sony trailered Chainsaw Man on Demon Slayer, Him, One Battle After Another, and Tron: Ares. There was a big splash at New York Comic-Con two weeks ago with a MAPPA panel, exclusive BTS footage, a surprise fan screening raffle, Pochita photo ops and more.

There were also anime influencer screenings at Alamo Drafthouse Downtown LA attended by 80+ leading creators, as well as an Anime Men (13M followers) Imax advance screening at the large format exhibitor’s HQ in Playa Vista, CA. Sony also tapped into the Crunchyroll fanbase with a stunted two-part recap program for the IP on the anime brand’s platforms. There was also a presence on Crunchyroll’s platform and owned digital channels across 65+ markets, premium app homepage placement, dedicated newsletters, video ads, podcast ad spots and a YouTube watch-along livestream of the first season on five global channels. Premium formats, Imax and 3D drove an updated 63% of the weekend with AMC Empire in NYC the highest grossing venue with $72K.

Universal/Blumhouse’s second weekend of Black Phone 2 is edging out the start of Paramount‘s Colleen Hoover movie, Regretting You, $13M to $12.8M. Updated over-performing regions include the Mountain, Midwest, South Central and Southern areas for the Hoover source material pic. Megaplex Theatres in Geneva, UT is the leading single-location gross at $16.9K. Bestselling woman’s novel-turned-film, Where the Crawdads Sing, held -40% in weekend two and legged out to a massive 5.2 multiple off its $17.2M opening for a final stateside of $90.2M. That landed an A-, Regretting You has a B. We’ll see what the hold factor is here for Regretting You; note that Crawdads had the advantage of a July 2022 playdate.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is arriving at the low end of its projections with $9.1M. That start is just north of what MGM’s Aretha Franklin movie Respect did in its opening, $8.8M, which bowed in the summer of 2021 as movie theaters were making their way back from the pandemic. Respect finished at $24.2M off an A CinemaScore. Springsteen‘s global take is $16.1M, under the $20M the studio was expecting. The movie was shot with New Jersey tax credits and cost a net $55 million. Respect also cost a net of $55M. While the movie was made with the utmost respect and authenticity for The Boss, getting his sign-off so that the Warren Zanes novel could make it to screen under the direction of Scott Cooper, a movie about the global rock star’s depression period during the making of his Nebraska album, pre-Born in the U.S.A., is not a movie that his fans are rushing to. A lot went into this from Jeremy Allen White’s months-long prep as Springsteen to the production shooting in The Boss’ NJ stomping ground.

Also complicating Springsteen‘s success is a non-holiday release date during an October World Series-NFL perfect storm weekend. Had Springsteen been released during the holidays, that’s when this older skewing audience of 59% over 45 could truly find it. The movie was brought in by incoming Disney chief David Greenbaum as his first project since segueing over from Searchlight after A24 passed on the movie over its production cost. In its essence, Springsteen is more of an arthouse film than a big Bohemian Rhapsody 20th Century title, however, the studio didn’t want to put it through Searchlight since they recently played James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Springsteen championed the movie during the promotional tour. He didn’t sign onto the film as an EP as he never desired the production to come across as a vanity project.

Also, as is the Russian roulette with these possible awards contenders, if they’re trotted out too early at the fall film festival troika, and they’re not exactly perfect, it could spell doom for a movie’s prospects. Springsteen, despite the brilliant performance of White, didn’t exactly wow following its Telluride world premiere and has been sitting on Rotten Tomatoes with a 61% critics score. At the same time, Disney is hoping for some sort of hold with 85% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and that 60% definite recommend from Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak exits.

Note, just because Springsteen bottomed out, doesn’t mean that rock performer biopic is dead. True, they are hard to stitch so that it’s not the same old drugs, sex and rock n’ roll, but there needs to be a groundswell triumph in the story, a quite overt overcoming of all odds story, and chock-a-block concert performances. This has been a successful sub-genre with Bohemian Rhapsody, Ray and Rocket Man pre-pandemic and Elvis and Bob Marley: One Love post. Why did A Complete Unknown win over in the story of off-beat poet-turned-electric guy, Bob Dylan? Why it was the whole romantic tension between Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan and Monica Barbaro’s Joan Baez (note that movie received an A CinemaScore to Springsteen‘s B+). That movie landed eight Oscar noms.

In better news for arthouse, Focus Features’ first limited weekend of Yorgos Lanthimos’ zany corporate politico-hostage comedy Bugonia posted a $40.5K opening theater average at 17 theaters — that’s the fifth best opening theater average YTD. Huge performances in NYC, LA and Austin. The Emma Stone-Jesse Plemmons movie posted $690K off of very shiny critical reviews of 90% coming out of its Venice and Telluride premiere. The movie, which reps Lanthimos and Stone’s fifth collaboration together (that includes the 2022 short film Bleat) cost a ton of cash, with Focus taking this package off the table for $45 million (I hear the movie itself cost $55 million). Part of the promotion included free screenings for anyone who is bald, or those yearning to be, with a barber on hand at cinemas. Bugonia expands to 1,800 locations over Halloween weekend. Note, the distribution plan here for Bugonia is different from Lanthimos’ Oscar darlings, The Favourite and Poor Things, which played the Thanksgiving and early December corridor, riding their awards season buzz and posting and holding weekends where those pics were often making $2M to $3M a weekend.