Monkey Man Box Office Spells Instant Hit As Dev Patel’s Action Movie Embraces Theater Release

Summary

• Monkey Man
  is a box office success with a $10.5 million domestic opening weekend.
• The movie has already recouped its $10 million production budget.
• While its road to the screen is complicated, it is well on its way to earning a major profit.

Monkey Man has proven to be an instant success at the domestic box office. The new action movie was produced, co-written, and directed by its star Dev Patel. Alongside a cast that also includes Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Sobhita Dhulipala, and Sikandar Kher, Patel stars as Bobby, a young man who seeks violent revenge against the rich men who ruined his life. The movie has had a strong critical reception, earning a Certified Fresh score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Per Deadline, the Monkey Man release is currently projected to end its domestic opening weekend with a 3-day total of $10.5 million. This makes it the highest-performing new release of the weekend, ahead of the new franchise horror movie The First Omen, though it lands at No. 2 on the chart behind the holdover hit Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. However, this total already makes the movie a success, as it has already earned back its $10 million production budget.

When Will Monkey Man Earn A Profit?

Monkey Man’s Road To The Screen Makes Money Matters Complicated

Bolstered by those strong Monkey Man reviews and solid word of mouth, the new Dev Patel movie is already on its way toward earning a profit. Typically, a movie needs to earn back at least twice its production budget in order to turn a profit in theaters, which would seemingly make its break-even point $20 million or more. However, the movie had an unusual and circuitous route to the big screen that makes calculating its profit potential slightly more complicated.

The movie began its life as an independent production before Netflix paid $30 million for the movie while it was in the middle of shooting. At that point, the movie had already made back its production budget threefold. However, Monkey Man was eventually dropped by the streaming platform. It was later picked up by Universal for roughly $9 million, meaning that the adjusted break-even point for the new distributor is likely around $18 million, even lower than it would have been if it had gone directly to theaters.

Dev Patel later suggested that Netflix dropped the movie because of the dense messaging of its story.

If its international numbers are as strong as its domestic total, Monkey Man may have already hit this point by the time its global opening is fully calculated on Sunday. It remains to be seen how much the release can climb in the coming weeks, though strong reactions to its opening weekend could help it continue to rake in money and increase its profits considerably. This makes the possible Monkey Man 2 even more likely, all in a matter of days.

Source: Deadline