Civil War Box Office Previews Set A24 Record (Will It Break More?)

Summary

• Civil War
  makes $2.9 million in Thursday night previews, setting a new A24 record.
• The Alex Garland dystopian thriller is expected to make at least $20 million in its opening weekend, which also break an A24 record.
• Reviews have praised the film’s lead performances and chilling portrayal of an American at war with itself, and positive word-of-mouth will be crucial to the film’s continued success.

Civil War has just released in theaters, and its Thursday night preview box office haul has broken an A24 record. Written and directed by Alex Garland, the dystopian thriller stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and Cailee Spaeny as journalists documenting a war between different American factions. The Civil War reviews have been generally very positive, with critics celebrating Garland’s chilling portrait of a country at war with itself.

Now, as Civil War prepares for its first weekend in theaters, Deadline reports that the movie has made $2.9 million in Thursday night previews at 2,931 locations. This sets a new record for A24, beating the $1.3 million in previews earned by Ari Aster’s Hereditary in 2018. Civil War is now expected to make $20+ million in its opening weekend, which would also set a new record for A24, again beating Hereditary, which had a $13.6 million opening.

What To Expect From Civil War’s Box Office

Will It Become A24’s Highest-Grossing Movie?

Civil War is off to a strong start, and A24 was obviously banking on this given that the film is the most expensive the studio has ever made. Budgeted at around $50 million, not including marketing (which Deadline reports is close to $20 million), the movie is a major test for A24 as it seeks to move beyond its low-budget indie movie roots. With theaters generally taking about half of a movie’s box office haul, Civil War‘s bar for success is higher than Hereditary and any other A24 movie by a considerable margin.

As seen in the chart above, the top three highest-grossing A24 movies are Everything Everywhere All At Once, Talk To Me, and Hereditary. Everything Everywhere All At Once, which hit theaters in 2022 and would go on to win a host of Oscars, including Best Picture, became a runaway success due to positive word-of-mouth over multiple months. Civil War is evidently off to a strong start, but it will need positive word-of-mouth to continue to drive success over the next few weeks.

Civil War
ends
on a provacative, pointed note that could help with word-of-mouth.

Civil War‘s Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 84% for critics and 86% for audiences, which is a promising sign. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire remains successful at the box office, but Garland’s movie could unseat it for the number one spot this weekend. Titles like Monkey Man and The First Omen are not likely to hinder the film’s performance all that much given those movies’ softer debuts. Civil War may be A24’s most expensive movie to date, but it certainly looks like a decision that is going to pay off.

Source: Deadline