As expected, Ridley Scott’s The Martian, starring Matt Damon, is set to have a huge weekend at the box office. Released this past Friday, early estimates show that the film will rake up over $50 million by the end of the weekend.
With the most recent news of NASA’s discovery of water on Mars, has sky rocketed (pun intended) the interest of many movie goers. Talk about a coincidence, 20th Century Fox have released this film at the perfect time. Not only will they have packed houses in 3,286 locations domestically, they will garner plenty of attention from the Academy Awards.
The opening day of the film took in about $17 million, including the $2.5 million at a Thursday night preview. This is far greater than the film Gravity that was released two years ago, and the biggest since the opening of Straight Outta Compton. Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst, said the performance of the film is impressive on many accounts, as stated in Variety. “Despite not being a sequel or a franchise film, it has truly captured the imagination of audiences and has clearly benefitted from the perfectly timed and thus serendipitous NASA news related to the discoveries on Mars just this week,” he said. “Plus you have the Matt Damon drawing power, plus for the true film fans, director Ridley Scott perfectly in his wheelhouse (Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus).”
He continued to say that this film could be the biggest October debuts ever. So far, Gravity holds the record with the top opening of $55.8 million, followed by 2011’s Paranormal Activity 3 with $52.6 million. If that isn’t enough, the film already generated a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. We definitely cannot wait to watch this, we’re sure you share the same excitement.
