Sony pulled a fast one. Under the guise of the various strikes, they attempted to promote Gran Turismo with word of mouth from previews on the very weekend it was originally supposed to open, as the film was pushed from its Aug. 11 slot just two weeks from opening (or two weeks into the massive returns of Barbie and Oppenheimer). They shifted blame to the striking actors for its perceived lack of interest (i.e. tracking numbers were low) and moved it to Aug. 25, hoping to at least Blue Beetle itself a momentary headline if it finished No. 1 at the box office, and it worked. Having said that, with National Cinema Day finishing off the weekend, perhaps an asterisk is in order, and the bigger story was the monumental achievement Greta Gerwig’s Barbie accomplished for Warner Bros.
Gran Turismo hoped for a start in the low 20s. Not only did it not get that and, technically, get beaten by Barbie in its sixth weekend, the $17.4 million it posted included numbers from those sneak previews it conducted over the past two weeks, which amounted to $3.9 million. Another $1.4 million came from its Thursday opening previews, but every studio does that. So with its thumb on the scale, pushing what was basically a $13.5 million weekend, Neil Blomkamp’s film got its No. 1 headline, but at what cost? Apart from Talladega Nights and a couple of the early Fast & Furious films concerned with racing, what are the films in this genre that have turned a profit? With two big names in Matt Damon and Christian Bale, James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari opened to $31.4 million in 2019 on its way to a $117 million domestic gross, but that was more than it did internationally ($107 million) and it wound up in the red thanks to a near $100 million budget.
Can you name any other live-action racing film that opened to over $20 million? Technically Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder back in 1990 equates to about a $36 million opening today and a $193 million domestic haul. Inflation could also get Speed Racer and Need for Speed over that hump to $26 million and $23 million, but in real time there is no match, and those actually make the Gran Turismo numbers look worse. Even Herbie: Fully Loaded, with inflation, notches about a $19.8 million opening, and we have not even broken down Death Race, Driven, Rush, Redline, or the Burt Reynolds resume from 1981-83.
The one bright light for Gran Turismo could be its video game roots. Need for Speed is the only film on that list to turn a minor profit, and not because of its $43 million domestic haul, but for its $159.7 million international take on top of just a $66 million budget. Gran Turismo’s budget is being reported as a low $60 million. If true, that gives it a much lower threshold to jump if its numbers outside North America are as buoyant. It will take about $125-140 million overseas to turn this into a hit. As of this weekend, it stands with an additional $36 million on top of its domestic $17 million, but how quickly will the film fall off domestically? It was actually bested by Blue Beetle on Sunday and only beat it by about $10,000 on Saturday.
Full Story via Rotten Tomatoes
